government bugs and wiretaps. As they looked on helplessly, they listened to Cassarino curse them and their mothers and fathers as he reached for his cell phone to report his discovery to his capo, Anthony (Sonny) Ciccone. (right)

“There’s about 30 wires sticking out of the ceiling. I don’t know what the fuck is up there, (but I’m) gonna find out what they are,” he told Ciccone, one of 17 wiseguys and associates indicted with Gotti, Cassarino and Brancato last June.

For two days, as Cassarino scrambled to bring in a trustworthy and reliable electronics expert to check out the club, he moaned and groaned, fearing the worst. 

“We got no more club,” he lamented. “We’re gonna keep it closed. Fucking camera, fucking wires. No more club, the club is gone. Tell the girl not to come and clean up,” he told Anna Eylenkrig, (left) who was later hit with extortion charges relating to the family’s operation of Joker Poker machines in a score of Brooklyn bars.

“Whatever they got, they got ... I’ll see you in five years,” he told Eylenkrig, the only woman indicted in the case. He was also worried that a new bar he had opened in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn was also “bugged  .... All the cops used to come in there and drink. They don’t come there no more.  What does that tell you? God knows what they got.”

Finally, Cassarino reached Tommy Lisi of Vintage Electric Service. “I wanna show you something, it’s important,” he croaked, telling Lisi to get to the club post-haste and inspect the wires and other paraphernalia that was hanging out

of the ceiling above the table and still capturing moving pictures of several diehard wiseguys and hangers-on still playing cards.

On Nov. 15, as investigators heard Lisi, (right) who was indicted as a member of the family’s sports betting operation, confirm Cassarino’s worst fears, they decided to retrieve their state-of-the-art gear the following morning before the wiseguys vented their anger on the expensive government property.

The next morning, Captain Kevin McGowan of the Waterfront Commission and a team of his detectives and technicians interrupted two club caretakers as they watched the Jerry Springer show, and kicked them out as they recovered their equipment.

While the detectives were inside packing up, Brancato arrived, learned what had transpired and called Cassarino, who called Ciccone and another club regular, capo Louis (Big Lou) Vallario, (left) to tell them that a bunch of cops had stormed the club to get back their stuff.

The detectives had installed the bugs and cameras five months earlier and knew the layout of the club.

“They came with a ladder,” said Brancato in disbelief.

Last we heard, he and Cassarino are still avid Gang Land readers and don’t have much love for drop ceilings.

A month before Cassarino and Brancato were mugging it up at Shea, Genovese soldiers Pasquale (Patty) Falcetti (right) and Vincent Aparo were at a Wendy’s restaurant on Manhattan's East Side to see a corrupt labor union official when the conversation turned to “The Sopranos." 

As Bronx native Falcetti mentioned that he had relatives and friends who were actors and that Vincent Pastore, whose character was killed off in the second season, was from The Bronx, it reminded Aparo of the time he and his father were at a Christmas party in 1999 at a Greenwich Village restaurant owned by a Genovese wiseguy. 

“So as we’re walking in there, that Tony Sirico was outside,” said Aparo of the actor whose Paulie Walnuts character, like Aparo, is currently in the can. “And this is the fourth time I seen this guy.  One day there was him and Vinny Pastore, in front of Ferrara’s, standing like this. And there’s me and my father standing like this, in front of Florio’s. He says, ‘What do you think they are thinking?’  I says, ‘They’re thinking we’re actors, they aren’t.’”

Mob Star: The Story of John Gotti

Hot off the presses! It's here, the book it took yours truly and Gene Mustain 17 years to do! Although we didn't know it at the time, we began working on Mob Star: The Story of John Gotti in 1985, when we began covering the Gotti story as news reporters.

The first edition came out in 1988, and we finished this new edition three days before Gotti died in June. Alpha Books has distributed it to the nation's bookstores.

With a 40,000-word update, the new edition contains the entire Gotti saga – from his treacherous rise to his defiant downfall and right on up to his time in prison and his death from throat cancer.

The 378 page, full-size book uses eight additional chapters, a prologue and an epilogue to complete the story we began telling (better than any other reporters, we might add!) when we covered the Gotti-orchestrated, midtown Manhattan assassination of former Gambino boss Paul Castellano.

For the last and best words on Gotti, this is the book to have. It is specially priced at Amazon.com at $11.87, more than five bucks off the suggested retail price.

Not Really For Idiots

Whether you're a Gang Land regular or an occasional visitor, you'll enjoy  "The Complete Idiot's Guide to The Mafia," a book I wrote for Alpha Books that was published in December. It's filled with real stuff about real wiseguys and insight about the ways that mobsters make their money. It's 343 pages of true stories of life and death, honor and betrayal. Get it at your local book store, or at Gang Land's favorite, Amazon.com, where the powers that be have knocked the price down to $13.27, so low I am concerned that the Godfather of online booksellers has forgotten about my end.