The feds are set to unveil their latest top echelon mob turncoat against a wiseguy charged with the revenge slaying of a 17-year-old Bronx youth who got caught up in a violent turf war between the Luchese and Genovese crime families, Gang Land has learned. 

Former Luchese acting boss Joseph (Little Joe) Defede (left) will make his courtroom debut as a prosecution witness at the racketeering and murder trial of Luchese soldier John (Fat Face) Petrucelli that begins next week in Manhattan Federal Court.

Defede, 68, “will provide crucial evidence” against Petrucelli in the June 20, 1995 stabbing death of Paul Cicero, according to prosecutors David Kelley and David Raskin.

Petrucelli, 30, was a member of a the Tanglewood Boys, a murderous Bronx-based youth gang that was a farm team for the Luchese family. Cicero was the cousin of a Genovese hood who had instigated a cruel shooting hours earlier in which a Tanglewood Boy was shot 14 times in his legs and lower body.

“Give this to your cousin,” Petrucelli sneered as he stabbed Cicero in the abdomen, Raskin charged during a detention hearing in February.

Ironically, the Tanglewood Boy whose shooting Petrucelli allegedly avenged, Darin Mazzarella, 32, will also point a damning finger at Petrucelli. Sources say

Mazzarella will recall the details of his own shooting and testify that Petrucelli later visited him in the hospital and told him he had gotten vengeance for him. 

Cicero was killed outside P.S. 108, a few hours after Genovese associate Michael (Hippy) Zanfardino used a .380 automatic to pump 14 bullets into Mazzarella at nearby Loreto Park, according to court papers. Zanfardino was acquitted at trial.

Defede never met Petrucelli but will testify that as acting boss of the Luchese family he took part in many sitdowns with Genovese leaders about Mazzarella’s shooting and Petrucelli’s retaliatory strike against Cicero, sources said.

A longtime friend of Luchese boss Vittorio (Vic) Amuso, (right)  Defede was inducted into the crime family in 1989 and was the family’s acting boss from early 1994 until 1998. To resolve the feud, sources said, Defede met often with then-Genovese acting boss Liborio (Barney) Bellomo and underboss Michele (Mickey Dimino) Generoso.

Defede also had sitdowns with gangsters with the Colombo and Gambino families, as well as with all three members of the Bonanno family’s

Administration, Joseph Massino, (right) Salvatore Vitale and Anthony Spero, (left) sources said.

“Little Joe was not a tough guy, but he had Amuso’s backing, and he often met with the leaders of the other four families,” said one law enforcement source.

Prosecutors disclosed their intentions to use Defede in a vain effort to oust Petrucelli’s lawyers David Breitbart and Diarmuid White from the case, charging they had a prior “professional relationship” with Defede although neither had ever represented him.

Defede knew White socially, prosecutors said, adding that in 1998, when Defede was hit with racketeering charges, he discussed retaining Breitbart, eventually declining because he was too expensive for Defede.

After pre-trial arguments last week, Judge Thomas Griesa dismissed the prosecutors’ claims as much ado about nothing and told them to be ready for trial on Monday.

Defense lawyers and prosecutors did not return calls asking for comment.

Brooklyn Federal Judge Frederic Block had prosecutors scrambling and talking to themselves last week when he set a Jan. 6 trial date for Gambino boss Peter Gotti and seemed to declare his hope that Gotti and his co-defendants win an acquittal. 

Block, who has voiced disapproval of Gotti’s solitary confinement as the feds probe an alleged mob murder plot against the warden of the prison where John Gotti died, made his remark while denying a request by prosecutor Andrew Genser for a later trial date.

“We have gone through all the pros and cons about setting a trial date,” said Block. “We don’t have to repeat ourselves. These gentlemen are entitled to hopefully have a jury say “not guilty,” especially under all these circumstances. We are going forward.”

Last month, Block ruled Gotti should be returned to general population at the Metropolitan Detention Center, but his order was stayed by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals when prosecutors appealed, arguing that Block had usurped power that belonged with the Warden.

Since then, Gotti’s attorney, Gerald Shargel, has pushed hard for an early trial, essentially arguing that his client’s 23-hour-a-day lockup is cruel and punitive.

Last week, after cutting the waterfront racketeering case to eight defendants, including Gotti and his brother Richard, a family capo, Block scheduled a Jan.

6 trial date when the last defense lawyer who had previously objected fell into line with Gotti’s wishes.

Shargel, (left) is scheduled to begin trial that day as lawyer for the largest caviar importer in the United States on charges of engaging in fraudulent activities. But he insisted Gotti would be ready for trial, regardless of Shargel’s prior commitment.

“The defendant Peter Gotti will be ready on Jan. 6,” he said, declining to explain to the court, or to Gang Land, whether an attorney would relieve him in the Gotti trial or the caviar case, or furnish another explanation for how things would play out.

As a public service, Gang Land offers one possible solution, based on a new wrinkle in the case that was announced at last week’s remarkable pre-trial hearing – prosecutors will use Genovese turncoat Michael Durso as a witness against Gotti & Company.

Perhaps Shargel can sprint back and forth from the Gotti trial to the caviar case, which is also set for Brooklyn Federal Court, depending on which defendant needed his service more at each particular junction in the respective trials.

This silly sounding scenario makes lots of sense when Durso testifies at the Gotti trial since Shargel, who has represented Durso in the past, will be barred from questioning him when he takes the stand.

Now, if the feds can get a few more former Shargel clients to cooperate, and sprinkle them into both cases as prosecution witnesses….

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.