arrested, but murder charges were dropped when three other witnesses left town or recanted their identifications. Junior was never charged in the case.

Now, according to law enforcement sources, a patron with legal problems of his own has told the FBI that he saw Junior, then a rowdy and boisterous 19-year-old wannabe gangster, stab Silva during a wild melee that erupted during an argument. 

The FBI’s new witness, said one law enforcement source, "stated he was in the bar and personally saw Junior stab Danny Silva." Junior, the witness said, was with "two friends he always hung around with. They were instructed by (his father) to watch over and keep Junior out of trouble.”

Junior’s attorney and friend, Richard Rehbock, said the FBI’s new witness “is just another nameless low life trying to use phony information as a get-out-of jail free card. I don’t know anything about the incident; it’s 19 years old, a little remote and a little ridiculous.”

Detective James McKinley was the lead investigator. At the time, he told The New York Times: "It was a simple bar fight. You know how kids are. One says, 'You're standing too close. You're looking at me the wrong way.' "

According to McKinley's official reports, "bad blood" between young Gotti's friends and Silva's buddies led to heated words and escalated into pandemonium when Junior smashed a glass in the face of one of Silva's friends.

Silva was pronounced dead at Jamaica Hospital an hour later, at which

time, Cennamo said, "We all know who did it – Johnny Boy Gotti and .... " according to McKinley’s reports.

Most of the two dozen or so patrons and employees in the bar knew that Johnny Boy, as he was known then, was the son of a feared mobster – and that his buddies worked for the elder Gotti – and refused to cooperate, including a friend of Silva’s who was also stabbed during the brawl, but survived.

“I have an idea who did it,” one young woman told McKinley, “I’m afraid I’ll get a bullet in my head. They’re Mafia.”

But a few witnesses did talk, and identified Caputo as the killer. He was arrested 17 months after the incident, but by then, word of Caputo’s mob connections had scared them all away. In mid-1985, soon after John Gotti, his brother Gene, and others were hit with racketeering charges and Gotti’s Mafia star began to rise, the Queens District Attorney’s office dropped the charges against Caputo.

”With all of the reports that John Gotti has become the new head man in New York organized crime, this case has become even more difficult to prosecute,” noted one prosecutor in an internal memo obtained by Gang Land.

The FBI declined to comment about the case. Sources said the FBI has spoken to police about the case, but had not yet made any formal inquiries to reopen the case to the office of Queens District Attorney Richard Brown. Caputo could be located for comment.

Junior, who received 77 months for a potpourri of charges that include bribery, labor racketeering, gambling, loansharking, tax evasion and lying on a mortgage application, is due to be released from Ray Brook federal prison in upstate New York on Sept. 7, 2004.

Meanwhile, Junior’s uncle Gene, (left) the first Gotti family member to be hit with an extra long prison term – 50 years for drug dealing back in 1989 – got some special attention from the feds last Friday, reputedly for engaging in crime family business behind bars.

As federal prosecutors prepare to bring two other Gotti brothers – Peter and Richard – and a nephew to trial for labor racketeering on the Brooklyn waterfront, Gene has been on a 1500 mile bus tour unlike any that most Gang Land readers have taken.

According to the Bureau of Prisons, Gene has traveled from McKean Federal Prison in Bradford, Pa, to the federal prison in Lewisburg, to a federal prisoner transfer center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to await removal to another one of the 100 institutions the Bureau of Prisons runs across the country.

For security reasons, officials declined to say exactly which states he'll see, or where he’ll end up, but you can bet it won’t be close to home.

Jailed Gambino soldier Gregory DePalma (right) was acquitted of plotting to kill mobster Nicholas LaSorsa this week. There’s no doubt, however, that he suspected LaSorsa had glommed two of his three regular reservations at Rao’s Restaurant – the popular East Harlem eatery – and was angry about it.

“I got an idea who it is,” DePalma croaked in a telephone call from the prison hospital in Springfield, Missouri last year. “I hope it ain’t fuckin’ Nicky because I’ll kick him in the balls. Tell him all that. Tell him, Fat Nick. Tell him the Pope couldn’t save him.”

Maybe the Pope couldn't save him, but the feds could, and did last year, arresting DePalma and two cohorts, nipping the alleged plot in the bud.