by the two victims in follow up interviews with the FBI as the most vocal and vicious of their assailants, assistant U.S. attorney Paige Petersen told Weinstein.  

Uvino’s lawyer, Michael Washor, said even he was “bothered” by the “yelling and the screaming” of the alleged victims – two gamblers who had been part of an armed robbery of a Uvino-run card game. The lawyer also conceded that the overall assault sounded “horrific.” But both men, Washor said, walked away from the social club, and he cited his client’s generous comment later when Uvino was heard telling his two cohorts: “Let’s give them a pass, let’s talk to them like gentlemen, I don’t want to do 20 years in jail.”

“Michael Uvino closed this out, wanted this over, wanted it to end,” said Washor. The later remarks showed that whatever dispute the defendant had with the card players, it had ended and the men were not in any danger from Uvino.

Petersen countered that the reprieve was only temporary. The gamblers, as well as their two shotgun-toting accomplices, whose names the terrified card players had given up, were still in danger from Uvino, 42, and his two cohorts, she said. 

Weinstein is no stranger to controversial rulings: twenty months ago he overturned the convictions of Mafia cops Louis Eppolito and Steven Caracappa on a technicality after a lengthy trial showed they had acted as mob hit men.

Weinstein determined that Uvino’s high bail, secured by property owned by him, friends and relatives, combined with

close supervision, was sufficient to keep the gangster in check. The judge made a similar decision regarding co-defendant Brian Dono, 38. (right)

Noting that he is occasionally overturned, Weinstein agreed to stay his ruling while prosecutors appeal to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, leaving Uvino and Dono cooling their heels behind bars at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. They will be there at least until the appeals court hears oral arguments on the issue next month. 

But a provision of his ruling that the judge has ordered the MDC to adhere to – one that allows Uvino’s daughter and her mother, as well as two women friends, including one identified as his girlfriend, to visit the unmarried gangster – have caused much angst for prison MDC officials.

So much grief, in fact, that the MDC recently informed the court to back off. In a letter to Weinstein, an MDC attorney wrote that while Uvino’s daughter and her mother might be allowed to visit – if they pass a background check – the MDC does not permit visits by non-relatives, and the other women cannot visit the Colombo capo. 

A lawyer for the federal lockup, Adam Johnson, stated that Weinstein had no jurisdiction in the matter. Besides, wrote Johnson, granting special privileges to Uvino, who has four immediate family members on his visitor’s list, “would lead to a slippery slope in which all inmates would be entitled to have friends on their social visiting list.” 

Maybe he’ll just send an envelope. Or a nice present.

Aging Colombo wiseguy Charles (Charlie Moose) Panarella (left) has decided that he doesn’t have to go to his lovely niece’s wedding after all.

Panarella, who is officially designated as physically and psychologically unfit for trial, uses a motorized scooter to get around. But just last week the 86-year-old gangster was trying to convince the court that those facts should not prevent him from attending his niece’s wedding later this month.

His change of plans came not long after he showed up in Brooklyn Federal Court last Friday and his lawyer put the question to Sterling Johnson, the no-nonsense trial judge who’s presided over Panarella’s labor racketeering case for the last five years.

“One of the problems I have with your client is he always seems to manage to travel somewhere,” said Johnson, noting

that while the gangster feels well enough “to go to a wedding,” doctors assert that Charlie Moose is too sick to go to trial.

“There’s something about that that doesn’t sit right with me,” said Johnson, who nonetheless agreed to mull over the request.

After thinking about it over the weekend,  the cagey old gangster must have decided that maybe he should skip the wedding, and leave well enough alone.

On Monday, his lawyer, who declined to comment about his client’s change of heart, officially withdrew Charlie Moose’s request, leaving him confined to his Kunkeltown, Pennsylvania, home – his case permanently adjourned.

The judge, according to an account by Daily News reporter John Marzulli, aptly, if not artfully, described that situation as “the vulture option, waiting around for him to die.”

His lawyer doesn’t understand what Hollywood sees in convicted bookmaker Chris Colombo, but that shouldn’t stand in his way.

Last month, lawyer Jeremy Schneider argued that Colombo should be permitted to test the waters for a reality-TV show, even though he conceded that he didn’t understand the show-biz interest in the mob scion. [CSI Miami star Adam Rodriguez puts the cuffs on Colombo.]

“For some reason,” said Schneider, “which for the life of me I can’t figure out, people in the entertainment industry find Mr. Colombo very entertaining, whether it’s through interviews, whether it’s him being an interviewer, him being an interviewee, him just going through his daily life, going to get his nails done, going to his therapy session.”

It seems that the lawyer for the youngest son of the late Mafia boss Joe Colombo was not blowing smoke that day.

Before he left tinsel town, the folks at Endeavor, a high-powered Hollywood TV-film agency that represents real stars like Michael Douglas, James Gandolfini, Tina Fey, Bernie Mac, Catherine Deneuve and Dustin Hoffman, signed up Colombo, reports New York filmmaker Chris Gambale, who’ll produce the show.

“The Endeavor people said they were confident they would be able to sell this project to a network/buyer and they started setting up meetings the afternoon we left,” said Gambale, who has been videotaping Colombo for years and already has more than a hundred hours of him and entourage in the can. [Colombo chats up Paris Hilton at Ago.]

Now, if Schneider can convince Manhattan Federal Court Judge Ruth Naomi Buchwald that his client deserves probation, the sentence she gave a codefendant who was part of Colombo’s bookmaking ring, the mob scion’s so-called reality show just might become a reality.

Last week, Gang Land reported that transportation magnate Domenic F. Gatto, CEO of Atlantic Express Transportation Corp., learned the facts of life about the mob's control of the New York city public school bus industry from his old man back in the early 1970s.

This week, investigative reporter Tom Robbins disclosed Gatto's close ties to former Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani and used FBI reports to detail many thousands of dollars in payoffs that Gatto made to officials of a mob dominated bus drivers union during the same years he was aiding the former Manhattan U.S. Attorney in several election campaigns. Check out the Village Voice for all the details, as well as a link to a fascinating YouTube video of Rudy Giuliani.