By Jerry Capeci

They didn't have a referendum or a long drawn out debate. There were no constitutional amendments, vetoes, appeals or court decisions. Nothing was signed into law, and there were no protests.

After a five year moratorium, the Mafia has apparently reinstated its death penalty. If you break the rules, you get whacked -- Just like it used to be.

Interestingly, the mob's return to summary execution came three months after a Brooklyn jury voted to execute a former prison guard who killed three people during a 1996 robbery at a social club in Bedford Stuyvesant, the first New Yorker sentenced to die in 35 years. The guard will probably languish on death row for years while prosecutors and his attorneys wade through what will most likely be a protracted appeals process.

Genovese capo Ralph Coppola (right) wasn't so fortunate.

He was quickly dispatched, albeit quietly, for pocketing cash earmarked for his bosses, according to Gang Land sources on both sides of the law.

Coppola, 38, hasn't been seen since mid-September.

But the law -- ("The FBI has heard rumors of his death and those rumors are being pursued," said agency spokesman Joseph Valiquette.) -- and his lawyer -- ("I am extraordinarily concerned as to whether he is all right. I fear the worst," said Coppola's lawyer James Merberg.) -- believe Coppola is history.

The last area mobster to be killed was Colombo capo Joseph Scopo, who was shot to death in October 1993 by a rival faction in the aftermath of a bloody intra-family war that left 10 dead in the previous two years.

Those killings and dozens more by the Gambinos and Lucheses, followed by the flood of life sentences meted out in the wake of the violence

 decimated the mob hierarchy. This prompted the Commission, the Mafia's ruling body, to issue a no killings directive until things cooled off.

His family members filed a missing person report shortly after Coppola (left) disappeared on Sept. 16, but he is officially listed as a fugitive. Coppola, a former carpenters union official, had pleaded guilty to fraud charges stemming from a $1.2 million rip-off of a men's clothing group that put on  trade shows in Las Vegas. He was set to receive a 24 to 30 month sentence this  month.

"He would not have run away," said Merberg, noting that Coppola had put off his sentencing to be present for the birth of his third child, who was born last month.

Coppola once ran Genovese family rackets at the huge Jacob Javits Center on Manhattan's West Side for acting boss Liborio (Barney) Bellomo (right). His death had to have been sanctioned by family leaders, because no one would take it upon himself to kill a capo and an important associate of Barney's without getting an okay.

Informers had reported that "Ralph got caught skimming," said one law enforcement official, who speculated without any real certainty that Coppola might have kept more than his share of the profits from the coast-to-coast bid rigging scam he ran out of an Eastchester, NY consulting firm from 1990 to 1994.

Some law enforcement types were surprised that Coppola's body was not left where it could be found as an example for other mobsters who might be tempted to break the rules. But wiseguys everywhere have gotten the message.

"It's better than leaving the body in the trunk of a car or something," said a Gang Land underworld source. "It has that mystique to it where it looks super professional. The people they're looking to send a message to is not the entire public. It's the mob itself, which totally understands that the guy is gone. And (with no body) there's less publicity and less heat from the law."

1. Name the singer who originally had the Frank Sinatra-like role of Johnny Fontaine in "The Godfather" but backed out fearing a negative reaction? Hint. He had a top ten hit with "On The Street Where You Live." Vic Damone.

2. Name the Canadian singing group that sang at the August 1956 wedding of Salvatore (Bill) Bonanno and Rosalie Profaci. The Four Lads. For extra credit, name the group's three top ten hits at that point in their career.   1) Standing on the Corner;  2) No, Not Much; 3) Moments to Remember.

3. Name the night club singer who became a comedian and a Las Vegas fixture noted for his "insult" humor after a Chicago gangster orchestrated a  disabling attack on him in 1927.  Joe E. Lewis.

4. Name the Colombo capo who prevented Morris Levy, the Genovese family backed head of Roulette Records, from muscling in on the Shangri-Las after the group had a No. 5 hit with "Remember" (Walking In The Sand) and a No. 1 with "Leader of the Pack" in 1964. John (Sonny) Franzese.

5. Name the hit song by Mickey and Sylvia that typified the relationship  between Robert DeNiro and Sharon Stone and was playing when they first met in the movie, "Casino." Love is Strange.

6. Name the three top ten hits that Jay and the Americans had while Jay Black, who sang at a couple of weddings of John Gotti's kids, was the group's lead singer. 1. Come A Little Bit Closer; 2. Cara, Mia; 3 This Magic Moment.

First prize is an autographed, soft cover copy of Mob Star: The Story of John Gotti,  by Gene Mustain and yours truly. Second prize is a copy of our second book, Murder Machine. Third prize is a copy of Gotti: Rise and Fall, which rounded out our mobster trilogy.

Spinelli became a "made"member of the Luchese family in a bathroom at the Manhattan Correctional Center as a reward for trying to kill the sister of turncoat capo Peter (Fat Pete) Chiodo.

The master of ceremonies at the makeshift induction  was then-underboss Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso. Capo Anthony (Bowat) Baratta was a witness. This information came to the feds, first from Casso (left), and later from Luchese mobster Frank Gioia Jr., who spent time in prison with both men who told him the story. Gioia began cooperating with the feds in late 1994.

Spinelli, on trial in Brooklyn Federal Court for racketeering and the Mar. 10, 1992 attempted murder of Patricia Capozzalo, really pressed hard to be inducted in jail, according to Assistant U.S. attorney Elizabeth Lesser. The induction took place in January, 1993, soon after Casso, who had logged three years as a fugitive, was arrested. Spinelli got to the MCC a month earlier, and Baratta (left) had been there since June, 1992, according to Bureau of Prisons  records.

Gioia is set to testify about Spinelli's induction and the circumstances that led up to it, Lesser said in her opening remarks last week.

They had to do without the gun and knife normally used as props in the traditional ceremony, and instead of a picture of a saint, the gangsters set toilet paper afire in Spinelli's hands as he swore allegiance to the Luchese family.

While the Lucheses considered Spinelli "made,"many jailed mobsters from other families refused to respect him as "a friend of ours" for a long time, according to prison sources.

Spinelli's sponsor, capo Richard Pagliarulo, (right) was at the MCC but was in a different cellblock and unable to attend the 11th floor induction.

The groundwork for the ritual had been put in motion a few weeks earlier when Spinelli, upset that he hadn't gotten "credit" for the attempt to kill Capozzalo, complained to Gioia and asked him to plead his case to Casso, Lesser said in her opening.

Gioia relayed Spinelli's message through  George (Georgie Neck) Zappola, a capo on the lam at the same time as Gaspipe. When Casso (left) was nabbed in January, Spinelli must have felt like he died and went to heaven. Casso  agreed that the wannabe mobster had earned his button by trying to kill Capozzalo, and Spinelli was straightened him. At least, that's what Gioia is supposed to say when he is called as the prosecution's last witness.

Spinelli's lawyer Ephraim Savitt said Gioia, a drug dealer and mob killer, had a penchant for violence and lying that continued after he began cooperating with the feds.

"He's proven it. He broke the jaw of another cooperating witness (while housed in a special unit) and lied about it," said Savitt.

Spinelli allegedly stalked Capozzalo for weeks and drove the van which carried Dino Basciano, who has admitted being the triggerman, to and from Capozzalo's Gravesend, Brooklyn home. Basciano, who's also cooperating with the feds -- he switched sides in 1995 -- was still on the   stand last week when court was adjourned.

Capozzalo, shot in the neck and back in front of her home after dropping two of her children at school, is expected to testify after Basciano.

But unlike Casso though, Zappola never had a conversation with former assistant U.S. attorney Charles Rose about cooperating, despite what Ernest Volkman wrote in his awful book, "Gangbusters," which contains so many factual errors you'd need a computer to count them.

And Volkman's assertion that Luchese associate Michael DeSantis, who'll get out about the same time as Zappola, "rolled over" and agreed to cooperate with Rose, is also false.

Under a threat of a law suit by both gangsters, Volkman and his publisher were forced to admit both screwups.

The "error" about Zappola caused Penthouse, which excerpted portions of the book in July, to print a correction in its September issue stating that "no such conversation ever took place."

Another astonishing error (many have been pointed out by readers) that stands out is a made-up remark Volkman attributed to Rose during an actual conversation he had with Casso about the 1987 torture killing of James Hydell, whose body has never been found.

According to Volkman's account, Rose, in an attempt to badger Casso, is holding up an autopsy report and reading aloud descriptions of numerous gunshot wounds to Hydell's knees, his groin, his abdomen and head. Utterly ridiculous: A veteran prosecutor reading from an autopsy report on a body that was never found to a killer who knows the body was never found.

Ernest Volkman, disgrace to the profession, who can't even write good fiction.

ASK ANDY

We still haven't figured out how we're going to replace Andy, so we're leaving his mug up here for one more week out of habit. Stay tuned.