Almost 25 years ago, Bonanno family mobsters got to know Donnie Brasco. They thought he was a savvy, likable, street-smart jewel thief. Later, they got the bad news that he was really an FBI agent. At trial, he took the witness stand and told them his real name: Joe Pistone.

This month, the feds have a very different scenario planned for the hero FBI agent who followed in Mr. Pistone’s footsteps and brought down the leaders of the Gambino family and 30 other mobsters and associates, Gang Land has learned.

When the burly 6-foot-4-inch agent takes the witness stand against Gambino capo Gregory DePalma, he will not disclose his real name. Instead, if Manhattan federal prosecutors have their way, he will testify using his undercover identity, Jack Falcone. He will testify in a courtroom closed to the public and press.

DePalma, the aging and ailing focal point of a two-year undercover probe, is the lone defendant. All of his co-defendants, including acting boss Arnold “Zeke” Squitieri and acting underboss Anthony “The Genius” Megale, have copped guilty pleas. Jury selection in DePalma’s case was completed yesterday. Testimony is slated to begin today.

As early as next week, Mr. Falcone is expected to testify that DePalma, 74, engaged in labor racketeering, loansharking, extortion, credit card fraud, and other crimes that the veteran agent – who retired last month – witnessed and often tape-recorded.

The move to keep Mr. Falcone’s true identity a secret – an effort criticized by several prominent defense lawyers – comes on the heels of the government’s success in getting a Manhattan federal judge, Alvin Hellerstein, to exclude the public from the undercover agent’s testimony at trial. Only the prosecution and defense will witness the testimony. The press and public will hear a simultaneous audio broadcast in a nearby room.

That set-up, Judge Hellerstein found, would enable DePalma to confront his accuser without jeopardizing any continuing investigations by the agent, who is involved in several out-of-state undercover probes, according to prosecutors. Even though he is officially retired, sources said, he continues to work for the FBI as a “contract employee.”

In seeking permission to conceal the agent’s true identity during the trial, sources said, assistant U.S. attorneys Christopher Conniff and Scott Marrah cite fears for the safety of the agent and his family.

DePalma’s lawyers, Martin Geduldig and John Meringolo, told Gang Land they would oppose any effort to withhold the agent’s identity from the defense, stating that it would prejudice DePalma in the jury’s eyes. “How could he swear to tell the truth and not give his name,” said Mr. Geduldig, adding that despite the government’s assertions, the agent is in no danger of reprisals from his client or anyone else.

Neither prosecutor would comment about their plans to keep the agent’s identity secret, and Mr. Falcone – Gang Land knows his name but isn’t about to give it up – declined to respond to several requests for comment.

Meanwhile, Mr. Pistone voiced unequivocal support for the hush-hush approach. Mr. Pistone memorialized his undercover exploits from 1976 to 1981 in the best-selling book he co-authored, “Donnie Brasco.” That was followed by successful movie that starred Johnny Depp in the title role.

“I’m 100% behind the ruling,” Mr. Pistone told Gang Land, recalling that the judge who presided over the 1982 trial of five Bonanno mobsters and associates rejected efforts by the prosecutors in that case to keep his identity a secret.

“We need this kind of a ruling. Why should a guy who goes undercover and risks his life to do a dangerous job have to put his life, and the lives of his family, in jeopardy again when he takes the witness stand?”

Two top defense attorneys with years of Mafia trial experience dismissed those concerns as nonsense. Gerald Shargel, whose client, Squitieri, pleaded guilty on the eve of trial, and David Brietbart, who cross-examined Mr. Pistone in the 1982 Bonanno trial and won an acquittal for his client, said mobsters just don’t kill FBI agents.

“First off,” Mr. Shargel said, “the concern that prompts the move is exaggerated and hysterical. There is no hint or suggestion that anyone intends to harm the agent. Second, it’s constitutionally unseemly. It hinders the defense’s opportunity to do an appropriate investigation of the witness. If this keeps up we’re going to slip slide to where witnesses will wear masks, jurors will be behind a screen, and the judge will sit in shadows.”

“It’s a typical attempt by the government to create an aura of fear and danger in the courtroom,” Mr. Breitbart said. “With Joe Pistone we were told about a $500,000 contract, he was going to be hurt, he was going to be killed. The only person who exploited the Joe Pistone situation is Joe Pistone – with his books, his movies and TV appearances.”

For his part, Mr. Pistone acknowledged that mobsters usually don’t target FBI agents for doing their jobs. Soon after his undercover work ended, he told Gang Land, agents contacted mob higher-ups. “They were told that [I] didn’t have anything to worry about,” Mr. Pistone said. “It was nothing personal, strictly business as usual.”

Later on, however, the FBI learned from informants that the mob had changed its mind and placed a contract on his life, Mr. Pistone said.

He said he was angered when he heard about the contract, recalling that mobsters had griped to agents that Mr. Pistone had done too good a job. “They thought of me as one of their own. They felt that I crossed the line. I had socialized with them, met their wives and girlfriends socially. I was the best man at Lefty’s wedding,” a reference to a civil ceremony involving Bonanno soldier Benjamin Ruggierio (played by Al Pacino in the movie.)

Even so, Mr. Pistone said he never worried about retaliation from “any real wiseguys,” but he is still apprehensive about “some wannabe mutt jacked up on drugs looking to impress somebody.”

Asked about the $500,000 figure that his publisher had alleged was the price on his head, Mr. Pistone conceded that there was a fair amount of good old-fashioned hype attached to that figure. “You can’t get five dollars from these guys,” he said with a laugh.

Speaking of hype, prosecutors Conniff and Marrah engaged in some over-the-top spin of their own by stating in court papers that the Gambinos had put out a $250,000 contract on Mr. Falcone’s life and that a jailed mob associate had accepted it. Their source? Press reports.

It’s true that the New York Post reported that story, and that the FBI investigated the possibility that there was a contract on Mr. Falcone’s life. But it’s also true, according to law enforcement officials, that the FBI was never able to determine that the report was real.

This column and other news of organized crime will appear later today at www.ganglandnews.com.