Joseph Massino is the Mafia chieftain of the Millennium.  

Under his leadership, the Bonanno family has closed ranks. For the most part, it conducts business discreetly, and most important, has not had a single member defect to become a cooperating witness, a malady that has plagued New York’s four other crime families and organized crime across the country.

Not long after the world breathed a sigh of relief that fears about a Y2K meltdown were a false alarm, Massino boldly catered the last known Mafia Commission meeting at a Maspeth, Queens restaurant that serves as his base of operations, Gang Land has learned.

The Big Guys sitdown took place at CasaBlanca, an Italian eatery at 62-15 60th Lane, Maspeth, and featured a veritable Who’s Who of New York Wiseguys, sources said. Gambino boss Peter Gotti, Joel (Joe Waverly) Cacace and Louis (Louie Crossbay) Daidone, acting bosses of the Colombo and Luchese families respectively, and Genovese capo Federico (Fritzi) Giovanelli, (right) dutifully represented their families, sources say.

Since then, the feds have neutralized Gotti and Giovanelli with indictments, but Cacace, 61, and Daidone, 56, are cagy career gangsters currently uninhibited by parole, federal supervision or indictment, although federal prosecutors in Brooklyn are breathing down their necks.

“Massino is the power now, and was then, so they went to his turf,” said one Gang Land source, declining to identify the wiseguys who accompanied the

visiting representatives of the four families to the Commission meet that was also attended by Salvatore Vitale, who is Bonanno underboss as well as Massino’s brother-in-law.

Gotti, 63, (left) scheduled for trial on racketeering charges next month, has been detained without bail since his indictment in June. Giovanelli, 70, and ailing, awaits trial next year on obstruction of justice charges.

Cacace, (right) who has survived three gangland style shootouts since 1976, rose to acting boss two years ago. About that time he was said in court papers to have ordered the execution of a former federal prosecutor whose father was killed instead in a bizarre mistaken identity assassination by three young mob wannabes in March 1987.

Daidone is a target of a continuing federal grand jury investigation that led to the racketeering indictment Tuesday of the Luchese family’s consigliere, two capos, three soldiers and 19 associates.

And while Bonanno underboss Vitale was recently nailed for loansharking and should begin a three year sentence soon, Massino, a main FBI target since he got out of federal prison in 1992, just keeps rolling along.

Although Massino, 59, sprung for the spread that the wiseguys consumed at

CasaBlanca, the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement says the Bonanno boss is a deadbeat.

In a petition to the Casino Control Commission, NJ assistant attorney general George Rover said Massino, who began visiting casinos at the Garden State’s seashore gambling mecca in the early 1980’s, owes Caesar’s Atlantic City $15,000.

The debt is 20 years old and uncollectible. Massino, who wagered a paltry $400, $200, and $50 the last three times he was spotted in Atlantic City, doesn’t go there to gamble; he goes “to meet with his associates,” said one law enforcement source.

And if Rover has his way, the surveillance conscious wiseguy who often travels far and wide to meet with his troops – he has met them in Italy and Mexico, according to court papers – will no longer do so in Atlantic City casinos. 

Rover cited two decades of unsavory mob dealings by Massino and asked the Control Commission to bar him from New Jersey casinos by placing him on an exclusion list of about 160 undesirables that includes 80 wiseguys.

Massino, who has 60 days to contest the request, surely won’t. He’ll find new places to meet his troops, and on occasion, he’s sure to end up at a restaurant in Maspeth, Queens. 

Last March 7, the day Gang Land broke the story that former Luchese acting boss Joseph (Little Joe) Defede had begun cooperating against his old friends, soldiers Joseph Datello and Vincent (Vinny Baldy) Salanardi reached for their cell phones. Datello was in Florida, on the run from state and federal racketeering cases in Manhattan, and without internet access.

In court papers filed Tuesday, federal prosecutors Thomas Seigel and Nicolas Bourtin wrote: “Salanardi and Datello had two conversations regarding an article appearing on the popular website, ganglandnews.com regarding the cooperation of …Defede.”

During the discussions, Datello got the scoop, and FBI agents tapping two cell phones Salanardi was using to engage in “remarkably unguarded conversations regarding the operation and structure of the Luchese family,” learned that Datello was “made” in July 1994 and that Salanardi followed him into the family four years later.

The agents also zeroed in on Datello’s location in the Sunshine State and arrested him five days later, the prosecutors said.

Salanardi, 39, was one of three Luchese soldiers nabbed on racketeering,

extortion, loansharking and drug  charges that are likely to ensnare Luchese boss Louis Daidone (right) before too long.

During the year long probe, Salanardi was heard spewing out threats – he told one debtor he would stick his foot down his throat and break his jaw – discussing moves of soldiers to different crews, complaining about all the hard gangster work, including multiple trips over the Verrazano Bridge from Brooklyn to Staten Island for his capo.

"Everything that happens in this fucking crew is not going to be my fucking problem,” he said in April. “I am not a fucking boss. I am not a fucking captain. It's not my fucking problem in life. Everything becomes my fucking problem. I ain't the only fucking wiseguy in fucking New York City."

Along with consigliere Joseph (Joe C) Caridi, 54, (left) and others, Salanardi extorted $7000 to $10,000 a night from the owners of a popular Freeport L.I. restaurant bar who had solicited the Lucheses to oust Lewis Kasman, a self-described adopted son of John Gotti, an investor in the club who had begun diverting assets to himself, the prosecutors said.

Now that Thanksgiving Day has come and gone – we hope the turkey and trimmings were great and that a Happy Thanksgiving was had by all – here are  a couple of books that Gang Land readers might like to give as gifts during the holiday season. (Some habits die slow. For Gang Land, the holiday gift-giving season begins with Santa's arrival at Macy's in New York's Herald Square.)

Since we have pushed our own all year, we'll resist the urge to recommend them again (although, of course, they would make great stocking stuffers) and mention a couple of others we enjoyed. You can get them at your local bookstore, or Gang Land's favorite, Amazon.com.

"The Wiseguy Cookbook," By Henry Hill and Priscilla Davis is an entertaining and informative read. It's everything you wanted to know about Hill's rituals and recipes for cooking that he learned from his mother, as well as the innovative culinary skills he picked up along the way, whether it was doing time or laying low in the Witness Protection Program.

His mom's Italian heritage couldn't get him made, but the mob couldn't keep him out of her kitchen. She taught him well, although every so often he found a better way. Like with cutlets, for example. This applies to veal, chicken, pork. Eggplant too. His mom dipped them in egg and then in flour and breadcrumbs before frying.

According to Henry, the opposite way, flour and breadcrumbs first, then egg, makes for more mellow cutlets. Also, with his mom's way, "some of the breadcrumbs always fall into the oil and burn, so you have to start over with a new batch of oil after a couple of rounds of frying."

Sprinkled among staples like Pasta e Lenticchie (lentils) and Pasta con Sarde (sardines) are plenty of anecdotes about wiseguys like Paul Vario and Jimmy The Gent Burke, cooking in the Army, and in prison. And for Gang Land readers living in the heartland, Hill tells how to improvise and use substitute ingredients. From his days in the witness program, Hill knows how difficult it is to find arugula, let alone people who know what it is, in places like Omaha, Nebraska and Butte, Montana.

"Brooklyn: A State of Mind," edited by Michael W. Robbins & designed by Wendy Palitz, is a must read for anyone who was born or raised in Brooklyn, or spent a few years there, or, like the rest of the world, wishes they had.

Published last year, the book is a collection of 125 original stories and a gazillion photos that bring to life people and places that have shaped the Borough of Churches over the last 100 years. Words and pictures of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Norman Mailer, Carmine Persico, Nathan's Famous, Jackie Gleason, Jackie Robinson, the Brooklyn Paramount, Abe Reles and the Half Moon Hotel, the Poet Laureate of Brooklyn. Interviews of Mel Brooks, Leonard Garment and Spike Lee. And much more.

Of special interest to mob buffs, and Gang Land, is a joint interview of Brooklyn Federal Court Judges I. Leo Glasser and John Gleeson about the 1992 trial of John Gotti. Glasser, the trial judge, and Gleeson, the lead prosecutor, were interviewed – the only out-of-court comments they have uttered – in 1999, a year before star witness Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano was arrested for drug dealing, charges for which he is doing 20 years.

While neither judge said anything outrageous, even in hindsight, Gang Land is sure each wishes they had declined to discuss the case. For example, Gleeson, who was less restrained in his remarks than Glasser, described Gravano as "the best witness of all time .... He looked evil. Then Sammy flipped and I spent a great deal of time with him. Literally hundreds of hours. I got to know him well. I laughed with him. He was smart, engaging and funny."

Glasser, asked to describe the kind of man Gravano was, never gave his view, noting only that jurors and investigators had "found him sincere when he said he was attempting to put the life of organized crime behind him."

Asked about criticism that his five year sentence was too lenient, Glasser acknowledged, " I took a beating for that." But he ducked the real issue, never explaining how he justified it in his mind. Instead, he blamed the media for not  publishing the sentencing memo he had "worked many hours preparing."

Glasser loosened up, however, when asked if there were "occasions for wit" in the Gotti trial. Often described as a grouch or curmudgeon, his response indicates he may also have loosened up at least once during the very tense trial.

"I suppose I had to use my wits one day when I received a note that some of the jurors, who'd been sequestered for weeks, were requesting conjugal visits. I called the only other federal judge I knew who had sequestered a jury. He said, 'What are you going to do, judge?' I said, 'I think I'll allow it.' He said, 'Good for you. I think that's what I would do.'"

Mob Star: The Story of John Gotti

The complete saga of John Gotti, from his treacherous rise to his defiant downfall, is here – Mob Star: The Story of John Gotti – 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" 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. We added a postscript, and Alpha Books has distributed it to the nation's bookstores.

With a 40,000-word update, the new edition contains the entire Gotti saga right 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.