The Colombo family is in sad shape. Boss Carmine (Junior) Persico, along with scores of family members and associates are behind bars. Its membership is in disarray and the family has more turncoats than any other.

But the best illustration of the family’s sorry state may be the conviction in Los Angeles last month of one of the family’s former stars for the lowest of crimes – beating his girlfriend.

Dominic (Donnie Shacks) Montemarano, 64, (left) was found guilty and jailed for a domestic violence assault in which he beat, bit and kicked his paramour when she got home about 3 AM on Oct. 3, 2001, obviously a bit too late for the aging gangster.

After serving 12 years for racketeering – he was one of 11 Colombo wiseguys including Persico who were indicted in 1984 and convicted in two trials – Montemarano relocated to Tinseltown, a three hour drive from a federal prison in Lompoc that has been Persico’s home for more than a decade.

Donnie threw Monday Night Football parties and rubbed elbows with sports stars and other beautiful people at his West Hollywood condo. He befriended celebrities like Sonny Bono – he was a pallbearer at his funeral – and Liz Hurley,

starring in “Night At The Golden Eagle,”(right)  a forgettable flick released last year that was produced by onetime Hurley paramour Steve Bing.

When Donnie wasn’t partying, he lived with his girlfriend, Nancy Ponce de Leon, now 28, and her two kids at her ranch style home in Wilmington, California.

By time she arrived home that October morning, Montemarano, who was babysitting her two young children, aged five and eight, was fuming, according to evidence at his trial.

He ripped off her clothes, beat her with a telephone, bit her on the thigh and threatened to “kick her skull in,” said assistant district attorney Erwin Petilos.

The abuse continued for three hours, the prosecutor said, ending with a threat by Montemarano to kill her if she didn’t leave the house – which she owned – and a demand that Ponce de Leon first return the jewelry he had given her.

“She threw it at him and he kicked her in the buttocks” before throwing her out, said Petilos, adding that Montemarano was arrested for assault after the shivering young woman called her father who notified police.

By time his trial rolled around last month, however, Montemarano and Ponce de

Leon had patched up their differences, and were living together again. She testified that her prior allegations were false, and that Montemarano (right in a 1978 photo) hadn’t abused her at all.

But pictures of a battered and bruised Ponce de Leon, and the prosecutor’s recounting of what she had told cops 17 months ago, convinced the jury otherwise. Montemarano’s bail was revoked and he was remanded to await sentencing next week, when he faces from two to four years.

Montemarano’s return to state prison – he also faces federal parole violation charges – is part of a trend among the 11 family members and associates of the Colombo Class of ’84, those hit with racketeering charges and convicted in separate trials.

Montemarano, John (Jackie) DeRoss, 65, (left) and onetime acting bosses Andrew Russo, 68, (right) and Alphonse Persico, 49, all completed their initial prison terms and were released, only to be returned to prison on new charges.

And for those keeping score at home, Ralph Scopo, Hugh McIntosh, Anthony Scarpati, Frank Falanga and Dominic Cataldo passed away in one prison or another. Gennaro Langella, 64,  and Carmine Persico, 69, serving 165 and 139 year sentences respectively, will follow in due time.

Alphonse Persico, the one-time heir apparent and acting boss for his father, Carmine, has now decided that he no longer wants to be part of the in crowd.

Persico, who agreed on Dec. 20, 2001 to a racketeering plea bargain that calls for 13 years, wants to take it back and go to trial. He says the feds tricked him into pleading guilty by misrepresenting that William Cutolo Jr. would be a key witness against him.

Prosecutors deceived him by insisting up until the day he pleaded guilty that they intended to use Cutolo – he blames Persico for the death of his father, William (Wild Bill) Cutolo (right) – when they had “no intention of calling Mr. Cutolo as a witness,” said Persico’s lawyer Barry Levin.

In court papers, Levin noted that Cutolo did not testify at the January 2002 trial of codefendant Jackie DeRoss, and that prosecutors allowed Colombo associate Joseph (Joey Green Eyes) Anemone to withdraw his guilty plea last year after he made similar allegations.

Assistant U.S. attorney Amy Walsh concedes that prosecutors became disenchanted with Cutolo in the summer of 2001 but claims the Anemone and

Persico cases are markedly different, even though they both involve her decision not to call Cutolo as a witness.

In court papers, Walsh said that Cutolo “began to experience serious psychological problems (that) began manifesting themselves as violent behavior – as exhibited by his kicking in the wall of a safehouse he was staying in – depression and alcohol abuse.” At a hearing, Walsh testified that she opted not to call him against DeRoss or Anemone (left) because there was “no question” that Cutolo would have been “a very bad witness.”

Prosecutors did tell Anemone two days before his plea that Cutolo  would be a witness, Walsh acknowledged. But they never made that assertion to Persico and his guilty plea should stand, she said. Persico’s motion to take back his plea is merely a pretext, she insisted, designed to enable him to try and negotiate a better deal now that Cutolo (right) has fallen from grace.

As Brooklyn Federal Judge Reena Raggi ponders her decision, Persico should be wary of the old adage that warns wise men to be careful about what they wish for.

After Joey Green Eyes succeeded in getting his plea back, he was promptly hit with new loansharking and extortion charges to which he felt compelled to plead guilty, agreeing to accept a maximum of 33 months in the can, six months more than his original deal.

Mob Star: The Story of John Gotti

Mob Star: The Story of John Gotti – the book it took yours truly and Gene Mustain 17 years to do – tells the complete saga of John Gotti, from his treacherous rise to his defiant downfall. 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 2002. 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. 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.