This eerie situation came about because Lino, 34, the key gangster in a $50 million Wall Street stock scam, was seen last month embracing and chatting briefly with Richard (Shellackhead) Cantarella, the acting consigliere of the Bonanno family, outside Umberto's Clam House.

Lino, who had pleaded guilty to racketeering and stock fraud and was free on bail awaiting sentencing, had spotted Cantarella as he and his wife were driving through Little Italy last month.

The FBI caught the whole thing on film, and prosecutors, who have claimed since his arrest last June that Lino was a menace to society, figured they had him.

As part of his bail package, which had originally included strict house arrest, Lino was not supposed to associate with known gangsters. Prosecutors

They hadn't placed any wiseguys, except for a few of his 120 codefendants in the massive stock fraud case, on Lino's restricted list.

"You came within a hair's breadth of being remanded," said Manhattan Federal Judge William Pauley, who confined Lino to his home and told the feds to submit a list of persons with whom Lino could not associate.

This time around Assistant U.S. attorneys Patrick Smith and David Esseks covered every possible as well as impossible contingency. They filed a list with the names of every member of the Bonanno Crime Family, all 111 wiseguys in the FBI's database, from Frank Adamo to John (Porky) Zancocchia. The list includes Bonanno boss Joseph Massino, underboss Salvatore Vitale and Cantarella.

Quite a few Bonannos -- like consigliere Anthony Spero and Lino's cousin, Frank Lino, (left) a capo

Little Robert is also prohibited from associating with six Colombo wiseguys, including acting boss Alphonse Persico and underboss John (Jackie) DeRoss, and "ALL MEMBERS AND ASSOCIATES" of the Genovese, Luchese and Gambino families whose names are not included.

Perhaps the most interesting name on the list is Robert Lino Jr.

"Talk about overkill," said Lino's lawyer Joseph Benfante. "I called Pat Smith and I told him I called Robert and told him to rip out all the mirrors in the house because the feds don't want him talking to (or associating with) himself,"(right) said Benfante.

"That's what Jimmy did before he got sucked into the stock market by the government's informer in the case (Jeffrey Pokross)," said Labate's lawyer Mark Wasserman.

Labate, who was Pokross's partner in a Manhattan brokerage that was knee-deep in the $50 million stock scam, pleaded guilty to racketeering and stock fraud charges similar to those that Lino admitted and, like Lino, faces about six years in prison.

Labate, 46, did not plead guilty to extortion or any acts of violence, Wasserman noted, asking Judge Pauley to relax Labate's bail conditions so he could "provide as best he could for his family" before he goes to jail in July.

Over objections from prosecutors Esseks and Smith, who have argued consistently to no avail that Labate is a danger to the community, Pauley said Labate could leave his home from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays to work at a construction site in Manhattan.

"Don't make the same mistake that Mr. Lino did," Pauley warned, referring to Lino hugging Shellackhead in Little Italy, a show of gangly affection that almost landed him in jail to await sentencing.  

Stropoli, who had just been arrested on federal gambling charges, was later hit with racketeering charges. And he didn't fare too well during his sitdowns with his Bonnano rivals either -- he got $40,000 of $129,000 owed to him.

But he did much better in his negotiations with the feds.

In return for guilty pleas to the gambling rap, to a New Jersey gambling charge and the federal racketeering indictment, Stropoli, 38, is looking at about three years, according to sentencing guidelines. He's not cooperating; all the cases, even the racketeering indictment, are primarily bookmaking charges.

"The emotional and financial cost of three consecutive trials - even assuming we won - was simply not worth the gamble," said lawyer Gerald McMahon. "He and his family wanted some certainty to their future."