An 80-year-old capo, Failla was bodyguard-chauffeur to legendary Mafia boss Carlo Gambino. He died in federal prison last week while serving seven years for taking part in a murder plot ordered by John Gotti.

Jimmy Brown died at the prison hospital in Fort Worth, Tex. where he had been incarcerated since 1994. He was due to be released next year.

Until his 1994 conviction, Failla, who controlled the Gambino family interests in the private sanitation industry as head of the Trade Waste Association, had avoided prison while earning millions for himself and the mob.

Every Tuesday, hobbling on two metal canes, Failla would arrive at the group's  lower Manhattan offices, usually carrying pastries he shared with other mob powers in the $1 billion a year private garbage hauling business.

Gambino (left) had placed Failla in charge of the family's garbage rackets in 1957, when the city licensed private companies to pick up garbage from commercial establishments believing they could do it more efficiently and cheaper than the city sanitation department.

Failla still ran the Gambino family's garbage interests in 1985, and was a key aide to Don Carlo's hand-picked successor, Paul Castellano. He was waiting at Sparks Steakhouse to dine with the Mafia boss when Castellano and his aide Thomas Billotti were gunned down outside. They were executed as they stepped from their car while Gotti watched from across the street.

Failla quickly firmed up his relations with Gotti and became part of his inner circle as the Dapper Don moved to consolidate his power. But the wily old gangster went along with a plot to assassinate Gotti that was hatched by rival Mafia boss Vincent (Chin) Gigante to avenge Castellano's death. If it had succeeded, Failla was to take over the Gambino crime, according to law enforcement sources.

Failla beat his only major case, a 1986 racketeering indictment, stemming  from an FBI bug hidden in Castellano's "White House" in Staten Island three years earlier. He made daily visits to the bugged mansion, but Failla was acquitted at trial because he rarely spoke during the visits.

"He is one of the wiliest and most cautious suspects we have ever encountered," Edward Wright, the state's Organized Crime Task Force chief investigator said in 1993. "He almost never says anything inside a building. If he has to conduct business, he always walks and talks outside in the street where he can't be overheard."

Failla was part of a memorable street scene in front of Brooklyn Federal Court later that year when the ailing mobster, who suffered heart disease and high blood pressure, showed up with five other gangsters to face federal murder and racketeering charges.

"Get the fuck away from me," Failla bellowed, swinging his canes wildly, one at a time, at photographers and reporters who were asking questions about charges that they had killed a mobster in Failla's crew who had gone bad -- was going to testify truthfully before a grand jury.

Failla was a crusty old gangster who made tons of money during the mob's glory days, but he ended his run in the joint, the fate of many modern day mobsters and mob bosses, just like his last, Gotti -- the once-Teflon Don.

"He's a real man," Gotti told his brother Peter and daughter Victoria in a January, 1998 videotaped jailhouse conversation. "And he's such a funny guy."

Gotti said he received a Christmas card from Bisaccia who explained that he had received favorable results from a recent biopsy: "He said, 'Sure, If I was out on the street, they'd tell me I got two weeks to live. I'm doing life, so it's benign.'"

For a much fuller account of four hours of Gotti's videotaped conversations  with his family during a two-day visit in January, 1998, check out the Aug. 2 and Aug. 3 editions of the New York Daily News website. 

FBI agent John (Jack) Karst destroyed his original handwritten notes -- as many as 40 pages, sources said -- of statements by lawyer Michael Blutrich, a con man/pervert who had owned the topless bar Scores in a secret partnership with the mob.

Until recently, Karst, a 12 year veteran, had supervised the FBI squad assigned to investigate the Genovese crime family -- the country's largest and most powerful. Karst, the subject of an internal probe, had been a supervisor about three months.

"It's a serious matter in the FBI, but there do not seem to be any adverse legal ramifications," said one federal law enforcement source.

The FBI has located copies of some of the notes but officials concede they  will never know whether Karst shredded notes -- made during the undercover phase of the probe into the trendy Upper East Side strip joint -- that had not been copied.

New York FBI boss Lewis Schiliro demoted him several weeks ago when Karst told a superior he had shredded the Blutrich notes, sources said.

Some Gang land sources suspect Karst shredded them to spare embarrassment for himself and Blutrich, an alleged pedophile who downloaded child pornography off the Internet while he was Karst's undercover operative in 1996. During the Gotti investigation, federal prosecutors and state Organized Crime Task Force investigators feuded with the FBI over its decision to use Blutrich as an informer.

Other sources, noting that the FBI would not have known about the missing notes if Karst hadn't mentioned them, contend Karst's actions were "stupid" but not venal.

"It's difficult to believe he would do something on purpose to subvert justice," said one source.

Karst destroyed the notes this year shortly after he was late turning in interview notes of another informer in the Gotti case -- Gambino associate Willie Marshall (left) -- while he was up for the prestigious spot as Genovese squad leader.

"When Karst found the Blutrich notes right after that, he figured if he turned them over late he wouldn't get promoted, so he destroyed them," said one source. 

Lastorino, who pleaded guilty to racketeering and murder in 1993, is due out of prison in 2008. He has never been charged with the Testa killing.

Frank Lastorino Jr. writes: "You have stated ... that my father was responsible for the death of Patty Testa. I am stating here and now that is not the truth."

The son disputes allegations that turncoat Luchese gangster Frank Gioia Jr. has tied his father to the Testa killing and was prepared to testify about them  at the racketeering trial of John A. (Junior) Gotti. He also noted that the allegations stem, in part, from accounts by former Luchese underboss Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso, and wrote:

"Casso has been classified by the government as a pathological liar and a psychopath. We, the Lastorino family are very upset by the accusations Casso cast towards my father, and in defense of my father, it does not seem fair that he never was able to speak out in his own defense.

"In all that is fair I feel that until it is a proven fact, not just the say so of a pathological liar, that my father should be given the benefit of a doubt and not be labeled as Patty's killer....

"The Testa family and my family have been close friends for almost 40 years and needless to say these accusations have caused deep hurt and sorrow for all of us. If it was within my father's power, Patty (left) would most certainly be alive today. We all mourn his loss to this day, knowing it came at the hands of the accuser and not the accused. So in all fairness to my father, please let his side be heard. He is innocent of this terrible lie, perpetuated by a man on whom the government has also turned its back."

"Thank you.

"Frank Lastorino Jr."

Ammirati, 32, operates an Italian deli and has a "great passion for '50's music, movies and books, especially mob books." A copy of "Gotti: Rise and Fall," autographed by yours truly and co-author Gene Mustain, is on its way.

A "huge" Gang Land fan, Ammirati has long been fascinated by the mob and its power, but has "never had a desire to live the life. I take great pride in my Italian heritage, and resent it when people think because you are Italian, you are connected."

Here is his winning entry: "The seven men (are) standing on Stillwell Ave. In the picture are (1) Eddie Garafola, (2) Thomas Carbonaro, (3) Lou Vallario, (4) Frank Fappiano, (5) Joe D'Angelo, (6) Louie Saccenti, and (7) Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano. This picture was taken on August 9, 1990 and the crime that was (allegedly) just committed (by all but Saccenti), the murder of Eddie Garafalo."(No 3. is actually D'Angelo and No. 5 is Vallario.)

Only Gravano, who pleaded guilty to 19 killings, has ever been charged with the murder, another allegedly ordered by John Gotti. The photos were introduced at a detention hearing where federal prosecutor Jim Walden tried unsuccessfully to detain Fappiano without bail on drug charges.