Mafia boss Peter Gotti and several Gambino family associates allegedly split a $100,000 payoff from the owners of the Rainbow Room to quash a dispute it had with a mob linked contractor who renovated the world-famous nightspot, Gang Land has learned.

Once renowned for its revolving dance floor where Fred Astaire performed with Ginger Rogers, the Rainbow Room today is primarily a ritzy catering hall, with 83% of its business emanating from fund-raisers, weddings, and other private parties. In 1999, the space atop Rockefeller Center was leased and renovated by the Cipriani family, who added it to their worldwide chain of fashionable restaurants and catering establishments.

Giuseppe Cipriani, the leader of the family business, paid the bribe to settle a labor dispute at the restaurant, according to mob turncoat Michael “Mikey Scars” DiLeonardo, who is slated to be a key witness at Gotti’s ongoing trial in Manhattan Federal Court.

Asked about the payoff allegations, the chief financial officer for Cipriani’s U.S. holdings, Andrew Genett, said he has gone over all the records pertaining to the renovation and that Cipriani had no dealings with the contractor, Francis “Buddy” Leahy, or the Gambino family.

Sources say DiLeonardo told the FBI that Cipriani wrote a check for $100,000 to a firm run by Leahy “to resolve a dispute involving the use of nonunion workers” to refurbish the legendary nightspot in 1999. Such pass-through payments to mob-tied firms are often used to enable businesses to count the payoff as a business expense.

Leahy is a longtime mob associate whose talents and moneymaking prowess were memorialized by John Gotti 10 years earlier.

“This Buddy Leahy – the nicest guy in the world,” Gotti proclaimed on December 12, 1989, adding, “Nobody can do the work Marine does,” referring to Leahy’s company at the time, Marine Contracting.

Through Bosko Radondich, the leader of the Westies, an Irish-American gang of hoodlums based on the West Side of Manhattan, Gotti said Leahy was funneling $9,000 to a Gotti liaison “every two weeks. He takes a third, and I get two thirds. I get $2,000 a week. Who gives you $2,000 a week?”

Gotti’s math was a little off, but he knew he had a good thing going. He stressed that he didn’t want any of his wiseguys, particularly the then underboss Salvatore “Sammy Bull” Gravano, messing with Leahy. “This guy’s MY partner,” he said.

These days, according to DiLeonardo, Leahy, 65, who lives in Atlantic Highlands, N.J., is still feeding the Gambino family coffers.

Of the $100,000 payoff, Leahy kept $15,000, according to DiLeonardo. Peter Gotti received $40,000, mob associate Louis “Louie Black” Mariani got a token $5,000, and Mikey Scars and soldier Edward Garafola each received $20,000, DiLeonardo has told the feds.

Gotti, on trial for plotting to kill the onetime turncoat Gravano and for construction industry extortion schemes, is not charged in the alleged Cipriani shakedown, but testimony about it is likely to arise when DiLeonardo takes the stand.

In court papers, prosecutors Victor Hou, Joon Kim, and Michael McGovern state that the Gambino family received extortion payoffs from construction projects at the United Nations, the Lexington Avenue subway line, Macy’s at 34th Street, the MTA building at 2 Broadway, “and various other residential and office buildings in New York City.”

Garafola, who served on the Gambino family’s “construction panel” with DiLeonardo, pleaded guilty to extortion and conspiring to kill Gravano, his brother-in-law, and faces 25 years.

Co-defendant Thomas “Huck” Carbonaro is charged with extortion, the Gravano plot, and the murders of two mob associates suspected of being informers. If convicted, Carbonaro, 56, faces life. Gotti, 65, who still has six years remaining for a racketeering conviction in Brooklyn last year, faces 20 years if convicted.

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Colombo associate Armand “Chips” DiCostanza is not a happy man. His son-in-law, Frank Smith, cooperated in and was most responsible for the murder and racketeering conviction two months ago of the family’s consigliere, Joel “Joe Waverly” Cacace.

To make matters worse, DiCostanzo, 67, was wrongly identified as an informant in “Cover Up,” a recently published book by Peter Lance, a former newspaperman and self-described “five time Emmy-winning investigative reporter now working as a screenwriter and novelist.”

In “An NYPD Cop Takes The Fall,” a chapter about the indictment and acquittal of a suspected rogue cop, Detective Joseph Simone, Mr. Lance identifies Chips as a capo and quotes Mr. Simone as saying that Chips had been an informer.

In a letter to Mr. Lance and the publisher, DiCostanzo’s lawyer, James DiPietro, noted that a federal indictment against his client – he pleaded guilty to engaging in corrupt activities with Mr. Simone – and FBI reports refute Mr. Lance’s claim. He demanded an apology.

Mr. Lance, citing Mr. Simone as his sole source, told Gang Land that he stands by his account.

Mr. DiPietro said his client doesn’t care about an apology. He wants the record set straight. With good reason: As the murder charges against Huck Carbonaro graphically illustrate, the mob often kills associates labeled as informers.

Gang Land is far from the arbiter in these kinds of disputes, but a check with knowledgeable law enforcement sources confirmed that while Chips is considered a career criminal who was active during the bloody Colombo war, there is no evidence that he ever served as, or sought to become, an informer.

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Turncoat Bonanno underboss Salvatore “Good Looking Sal” Vitale was instrumental in the racketeering and murder convictions of his brother-in-law, Joseph Massino. Vitale will also be the key witness at his murder trial next year, for which Massino faces the death penalty.

Sources close to the jailed Mafia boss, however, say that Massino was more personally hurt by the defection of capo James “Big Louie” Tartaglione, a longtime ally who wore a wire and tape-recorded dozens of conversations with top family gangsters.

“Joe suspected Sal might turn, but he never in a million years thought Louie would become a rat,” said one source. “He sent for him, told Louie to come up from Florida. That devastated him.”

And Tartaglione seemed to know it would, as the following excerpt from a September 13, 2003, taped conversation he had with capo Anthony “Tony Green” Urso illustrates.

“Joe trusts you … he knows that you’re 100% with him,” said Urso. “That’s what it’s all about. He has nobody anymore to trust. Who’s he have? You, me … a few guys, that’s all. And he told me he trusts you ’cause he knows you a long time. That’s what it’s all about Lou, that’s why he wants you here. …”

“I got the chills you saying that,” said Tartaglione.