Manhattan and Staten Island, according to a 24-count indictment. Wife Lauretta, 55, was a more than able front, helping him launder millions of dollars in spoils.

Castelli, who was released on bond to await trial, faces 20 years and $1.7 million in fines if convicted. Richard Cantarella faces life and $3.2 million in fines. The couple also face the forfeiture of $850,000. Son Paul, (right) held without bail as a danger to the community, faces 20 years. The elder Cantarella’s detention hearing is pending. 

In 1994, according to court papers, Paul Cantarella and several crew members, using walkie-talkies and two cars, kidnapped a wealthy businessman at his office, drove him home, forced him to deactivate the burglar alarm system, and cleaned out his safes of cash, jewelry and other valuables.

In addition to cleaning him out, the plan called for the terrified businessman, who knew of the elder Cantarella’s mob clout, to “reach out to Richard Cantarella for protection,” prosecutors Ruth Nordenbrook and Greg Andres said in court papers.

In another scheme, a businessman from whom Richard Cantarella extorted $250,000, was shaken down for an additional $20,000 so Cantarella could “purchase a vintage 1962 Pontiac convertible” that he registered in his wife’s name, the prosecutors said.

Two months ago, in a search of their $3 million home in the tony Huguenot

section of Staten Island, FBI agents seized a check written by the extortion victim that was used to buy the car, pictures of the car, as well as the car itself.

A month earlier, Cantarella was tape recorded telling one of two extortion victims who are cooperating with the feds to explain away a $90,000 check he gave to Castelli (left) as a loan payment and not an extortion payoff, the prosecutors said.

In an effort to locate a suspected informant, Cantarella contacted his accountant and had crew members visit the bank where he did business. “I gotta find out everything about him cause he ain’t gonna put me in jail,” he allegedly explained to a cooperating witness.

Cantarella’s actions and loose lips are likely to cause him some grief with the man who recently promoted him, Bonanno boss Joseph Massino.

Cantarella introduced the witness to Massino and told him that it was Massino who, while serving a 10 year rap for racketeering, pushed for Cantarella to become a “made man” in the early 1990’s.

“The guy who did it was Joe, the guy you met,” Cantarella told the witness a few months ago. “He was in jail. And he sent the word. He said, ‘I want justification why (late Bonanno capo) Al (Embarrato, another former New York Post employee) is holding Richie back.’ Because somebody sent a whisper in Joe’s ear.”

Massino, (right) the only New York Mafia boss currently not in prison, may have liked what he heard about Shellackhead while he was doing time, but he won’t be too happy with some of the stuff he’s learned lately.

Cantarella co-defendant Frank Coppa, who has 28 months left to serve for a securities fraud rap, was hit with extortion charges that could wind up costing him a few more years.

The 61-year-old capo has been living on borrowed time for decades.

In 1978, he was badly burned and suffered shrapnel wounds in his face, chest and legs when a bomb exploded as he opened the door of his Mercedes, according to the Staten Island Advance.

Gambino soldier Primo Cassarino, whose exploits locating bugs and cameras in the ceiling of a mob social club with some inadvertent help from Gang Land were detailed here last week, got a big break the other day from Brooklyn Federal Judge Frederic Block. 

Over objections from prosecutor Rick Whelan, Block ruled that Cassarino could await his racketeering trial in the comfort of his Brooklyn home rather than the nearby federal lockup that had been home for all but one week since June.

Block ruled that Cassarino, whom the judge had found to be a danger to the community four months ago based on tape recorded threats, was apparently no longer a danger, or at least less of one now, for several reasons.

Block, who set strict house arrest conditions, noted that Cassarino had behaved himself when he was home for a week with his 12-year-old daughter after she underwent cleft palate surgery, and that his friends and family members had posted $2.2 million as collateral for his bail.

Cassarino, who went home Monday, won’t be searching for bugs or wiretaps – he knows the feds will be watching and listening. To win his client’s release, lawyer Richard Ware Levitt agreed to electronic home monitoring, random searches of his home, a tap on Cassarino’s phone line, and no cell phones.

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.