Wife Sits and Waits - - In Jail

RITA BOLOGNA always knew her husband wasn't the most faithful wiseguy a woman could love, but they raised three children who gave them three grandchildren.

So, after a divorce, many years apart and a second marriage that failed, she moved back in with him.

Now, two years later, the 51-year old grandmother is caught in a prosecutorial power play, held in jail, like her former husband -- Salvatore (Sally Dogs) Lombardi, a reputed mob capo -- without bail on major league heroin-trafficking charges that could keep her there for life.

The Manhattan district attorney's office would like her to testify against him, or for him to plead guilty, and it's playing legal hardball against both.

And the judge in the case, a former drug prosecutor for the Manhattan district attorney's office, seems to be pitching particularly high hard ones.

Gang Land is not shilling for Lombardi, a reputed Genovese capo with a number of dead men on his resume, and a federal drug conviction on his rap sheet.

Gang Land also is not shilling for Bologna if - always a big IF - she is convicted of scheming to ship heroin to New York, last year from Spain, this year from Boston.

What's troubling, however, is that Bologna has been remanded without bail, and has spent time hospitalized at Rikers Island, where she has been treated for recurring asthma, while three of her husband's reputed mob co-defendants are free on bail awaiting trial for the same charges.

The men, with ties to the Genovese and Bonanno crime families, allegedly carried heroin here from Spain and raised $120,000 to buy a cache in Boston. They're alleged criminal associates of Lombardi, not his paramour.

One is also awaiting trial on federal heroin charges in Brooklyn. All three were released on $1 million bail that was set by Supreme Court Justice Leslie Snyder over the objections of th Manhattan district attorney's office.

Snyder, an excellent judge, is very tough on crime and declined to dis cuss the case. A few days after the arrests, lawyer Judd Burstein charged the district attorney's office with "seeking some sort of pressure or tactical advantage" by detaining Bologna and pleaded that his client be released on her own recognizance.

"She has aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, brothers and sisters in the community. She has serious asthmatic problems. I see no reason to detain a woman with these kinds of roots, this kind of Physical condition, and this weak a case against her," Burstein argued in court.

"It's not a sexist argument, is it?" chided Snyder. "Do you argue that it would be okay to detain a man in this position but not a woman?" "Absolutely not," responded Burstein, adding that, at worst, his client may have been present when illegal activity took place but was unaware of it. "The 'mere presence' defense was perhaps invented for this situation."

After hearing counter-arguments and additional secret arguments later from prosecutors that Bologna was intimately involved in Lombardi's alleged drug dealing and would flee if released, Snyder ordered Bologna held without bail.

Transcripts of the secret proceeding, which Snyder allowed because prosecutors asserted the information could jeopardize ongoing Probes, were recently unsealed. Burstein charges that Snyder was "misled by what can only be characterized as a fraudulent representation" by prosecutor Eric Herschmann.

In court papers, Burstein said an examination of nine boxes of electronic surveillance logs and documents seized by prosecutors showed that Herschmann made many "false claims."

THESE included his statement that Bologna signed "a slew" of $9,000 and $9,500 checks that Lombardi used to pay drug-dealing expenses, that she paid rent and other bills for a Lombardi drug partner, and that they kept $350,000 in their children's names and $150,000 in another account.

"In my view the DA's office is attempting to gain some unfair advantage against Mr. Lombardi by unfairly continuing to incarcerate Ms. Bologna," Burrstein said yesterday.

Herschmann has not yet filed his response and could not be reached for comment.

A high-level source in the district attorney's office conceded that Herschmann misspoke about the "slew of checks" but insisted that all of Burstein's other claims "were a matter of interpretation."

"This is standard stuff, attacking the prosecutor when you don't have the facts, but 95% of what (Herschmann) said was accurate and we still think we're on pretty solid ground and that the judge did the right thing," said the source.

Lombardi, after allegedly dragging his former wife into a drug indictment, may have finally done the right thing by her.

IN an affidavit, Lombardi said Bologna had no "knowledge about my business dealings, whether legitimate, or as the government alleges, illicit," and would testify to that effect if she had a separate trial.

If Snyder wished more details, he added, Lombardi would give "the substance of the testimony" at a secret in camera session -- like the one the prosecutors used to keep the mother of his children in jail.