By Jerry Capeci

A key factor in Casso's plan was the mob's propensity for retaliation: Do unto others as they have done unto you or your pals.

It kicked off with the assassination of a close associate of Amuso's, Patty Testa, (right) who was shot to death in front of his home on Dec. 2, 1992. "Patty had helped Vic when he was on the lam, and after he was convicted, Vic used him to carry messages back and forth from prison," said one law enforcement source.

Word was spread that Testa was killed by the Gambinos in retaliation for several of them being killed in retaliation for John (Dapper Don) Gotti's unsanctioned hit on Paul Castellano in 1985.

In reality, sources tell us, Testa was murdered by Luchese capo Frank (Big Frank) Lastorino. (left) At the same time, Casso ordered the family's "Bensonhurst crew" to publicly execute Junior, who had become the Gambino family's acting boss, as a message to his jailed-for-life father.

"Leave the son on the streets so the father could find him," was the order that Casso reportedly gave in mid December, 1992.

Lastorino's "Canarsie crew" was to whack Gambino capo Nicholas (Little Nick) Corozzo, (right) who lived in that section of Brooklyn, and whom Casso feared was a real threat to retaliate for a hit on Junior.

The plot fizzled the following month when Casso was arrested as he stepped out of the shower and reached for a towel at the home of an old girlfriend in New Jersey, some 30 months after he got into the wind to evade federal racketeering charges.

Frank Gioia Jr., a murderous member of the Luchese Bensonhurst crew was  to testify about the murder plots at Junior's racketeering trial, sources said. Gioia began cooperating in 1994 and had met Junior two years before.  

Gioia's information has led to more than 70 convictions of wiseguys and drug dealers, even though he's only testified at one trial. Prosecutors decided Gioia had more current information about Gotti than former Luchese acting boss Alfonse (Little Al) D'Arco, (left) who they originally had tapped to testify.

At Testa's wake, Lastorino told several mobsters, including Gioia and Frank (Bones) Papagni, (right) that he suspected that the Gambinos were responsible but he and Casso were still investigating.

Less than a week later, Lastorino reported that he and Casso had determined that the Dapper Don had discovered that the Lucheses had killed three top Gambino mobsters, including Frank DeCicco, who was blown up in a car in 1986, in retaliation for Castellano. The Gambinos, he said, had retaliated by killing Testa.

"We hurt guys close to John. They're hurting guys close to Vic," capo George (Georgie Neck) Zappola, (left) also a fugitive at the time, told Gioia and Papagni during a rendezvous at a restaurant outside the city.

Amuso, who was involved in the murders of DeCicco and mobsters Edward Lino in 1990 and Bartholomew Borriello in 1991, bought into it and okayed  Casso's planned hits on young Gotti and Corozzo, sources said. It all made sense to Amuso, 64, who knew that Gaspipe had been shot in a September, 1986 ambush by the Gambinos in retaliation for DeCicco's murder.

Papagni began trying to get a line on Junior's daily routine from Gambino capo Greg DePalma, a talkative gangster with whom Papagni had a close relationship through a relative, sources said. Gioia, meanwhile, was to try to get the same information from a few Gambino soldiers and associates he knew.

But it all unraveled when Casso, 58, was nabbed -- he's now serving life.  Lastorino, Papagni and Zappola were all subsequently indicted for racketeering and pleaded guilty. Lastorino, 59, is due out in 2008.
Papagni, 42, and Zappola, 39, are due out in 2014.

Interestingly, Gotti, 35, is the only surviving mobster on both sides of the plot not yet in jail. He'll join them in July. Junior pleaded guilty to racketeering last month and is currently confined to his Long Island estate. He faces 70 to 87 months, but will likely be released before everybody, except for Corozzo, who's due out in 2004.

Judge Reena Raggi dismissed his year of spying against World Trade Center bombing mastermind Ramzi Yousef while they were prison mates as insignificant at best and more likely "part of a scam."

At his trial, Scarpa testified that he alerted the FBI of plots to kill a judge and a prosecutor. He also described how he used a tiny two-inch spy camera to photograph bomb formulas that Yousef slipped through the cracks in the wall of their cells.

Scarpa, 47, was acquitted of five murders which each carried a life sentence, but convicted of racketeering and separate counts of loansharking, bookmaking and tax fraud. He admitted at trial that he was  inducted into the Mafia, but claimed the crimes in his six-count indictment were all committed by his father, Greg Sr., a Colombo capo and a top-echelon FBI informant for 30 years. 

During a lengthy hearing, Scarpa's attorneys asked for 20 years -- the maximum for racketeering -- arguing that the other crimes were part of the racketeering count and that additional time would be excessive. Prosecutors argued that the crimes were all separate, and should be added together for a total of 90 years.

Raggi said to avoid the appearance that she was sentencing Scarpa to a "life sentence" for murders of which he was acquitted, Raggi gave him 20 years for racketeering, 10 years for three loansharking convictions, five years for bookmaking and five years for tax fraud.

Declaring that much of his testimony was perjury and that Scarpa was "from start to the last - a criminal," Raggi ordered that the 40 years be tacked on to a sentence for a 1988 racketeering conviction that ends next year.

Under federal prison guidelines, Scarpa can expect to be released in 2033, when he's 80. Using the same guidelines, he could have gotten out of prison in 2014, but he turned down a plea deal of 17 years.

James (Froggy) Galione, (right) a Luchese mobster who pleaded guilty two years ago to racketeering, drug dealing and murder and is currently serving 22 years in prison, was about 11 when his father Ralph died the same way in 1975.

A few years before young Pappa hooked up with the Colombos and allegedly began killing people and bragging about it, he was  looking to hook up with Galione's drug dealing crew.

Pappa, an alleged drug dealing killer, seemed like a good fit. But there was no way Galione would have it. He knew that back in 1975 Gerard Pappa, (left) then a Genovese soldier, had fired the fatal shots that killed his father, a Gambino associate.