In recent days, a Brooklyn federal judge has meted out surprising back-to-back setbacks to federal prosecutors who have accused the acting Bonanno family boss, Vincent “Vinny Gorgeous” Basciano, of plotting to kill a federal prosecutor.

In rulings last Thursday and Monday, Judge Nicholas Garaufis questioned allegations that Basciano plotted to kill a prosecutor and ordered an end to hardball tactics that the feds have been using against the jailed gangster and two co-defendants.

Judge Garaufis ruled that the evidence he has seen and heard, including jailhouse tapes made by a former boss, Joseph Massino, while “doggedly questioning Basciano,” does not back up an accusation that Basciano conspired to kill the prosecutor, either before or since his November 19 arrest.

The judge also questioned the prosecutors’ claims that Vinny Gorgeous hatched a December 1 murder while he was detained following his arrest. As a result, Judge Garaufis ordered Basciano released from the “exceptionally harsh” confines of a Special Housing Unit at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan.

In his ruling, Judge Garaufis wrote that the “foremost factor” in his decision to release him from an SHU – usually reserved for terrorism suspects and violent inmates – was Basciano’s status as a “death-eligible defendant,” and the likelihood that the ensuing protracted litigation could keep him in isolation for as long as two years.

“Basciano’s detention in the SHU presents both practical and psychological obstacles” that prevent him from “working with his attorneys as they attempt to dissuade the attorney general from seeking the death penalty against him,” he wrote.

Judge Garaufis, who presided over Massino’s trial last year, said he is well aware that the Bonannos are a murderous lot and that the government’s stated objective – to protect society by placing Basciano in 23-hour lockdown at the MCC – was “clearly legitimate.”

But Basciano is no different than “hundreds of individuals in pre-trial detention who are accused of having committed violent acts before they were detained,” Judge Garaufis wrote.

After listening to two tape-recorded conversations between Massino and Basciano, Judge Garaufis found that the tapes did not show that Basciano ordered the December 1 murder of mob associate Randolph Pizzolo from his federal lockup, as prosecutors had asserted, “even drawing all inferences in favor of the government,” the judge wrote.

“If Basciano ordered Pizzolo murdered, he did so before” he was incarcerated, Judge Garaufis wrote, noting that while that might be cause for detention, it was insufficient to justify placement in the SHU at the MCC.

While Judge Garaufis strongly implied that Basciano had implicated himself in setting Pizzolo’s murder in motion before his November 19 arrest, the judge found that Vinny Gorgeous had not admitted any involvement in a plot to kill prosecutor Greg Andres.

Sources said that Massino has told the feds that Vinny Gorgeous suggested killing Andres during an unrecorded conversation they had on December 10, their first jailhouse meeting following Basciano’s arrest three weeks earlier.

When the FBI wired up Massino on January 3 and January 7, he raised the subject several times during lengthy conversations he had with Basciano, Judge Garaufis wrote, but each time, “Basciano disclaimed any interest in pursuing or discussing any such objective.”

While it was apparent that there had been “an earlier conversation” in which someone expressed a “desire to harm the prosecutor,” Judge Garaufis wrote, the tapes “do not reveal whether it was Basciano who harbored that desire, whether it was discussed seriously or in jest, whether Basciano agreed to go along with the plan, or disavowed it from the beginning.”

During a hearing last week, Basciano’s lawyer, Barry Levin, said his client, “not once but at least 14 times said to Massino: ‘I want nothing to do with this, forget about it, I don’t want to discuss it.’ Each time it’s raised, my client unequivocally states, ‘No, forget about it, leave it alone, I don’t want to discuss it.'”

While the feds were still reeling from that decision, Judge Garaufis compounded their angst by ordering them to arrange co-defendant meetings between Basciano and two underlings – capo Dominick Cicale and soldier Anthony “Ace” Aiello – who are charged with the same murder and also face possible execution, but are detained across the East River at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

Judge Garaufis agreed with arguments by a seven-lawyer defense team – led by Basciano’s attorneys, Mr. Levin, Alan Futerfas, and Ephraim Savitt – that co-defendant meetings were crucial in preparing a defense, and marshaling mitigating factors in an effort to counter prosecutors’ assertions that their clients deserve to be executed.

Prosecutors Thomas Seigel and Bridget Rohde had argued that co-defendant meetings would be a logistical nightmare, and in addition, were nothing more than a vehicle to enable the mobsters to discuss mob business in an effort to keep the beleaguered “family up and running.”

In his ruling, Judge Garaufis dismissed both contentions, noting that the attorneys in the case were “among the most respected members of the defense bar in this district” and “would not permit any discussions that even hint of criminal activity or planning to occur in their presence.”

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This hasn’t been the best of times for people named Carmine Persico.

Two weeks ago, Carmine “Junior” Persico, 71, the jailed-for-life Colombo boss, was transferred to the Federal Medical Center in Butner, N.C., suffering undisclosed medical problems that law enforcement sources said were “serious in nature.”

Persico lawyer Linda Sheffield declined to disclose his ailments but reported that his hospitalization appeared to be precautionary, caused by his relocation earlier this year to the Big Sandy Penitentiary in Inez, Ky., a remote area about 140 miles east of Lexington.

Meanwhile, in Brooklyn last week, Persico’s nephew, Carmine Persico, was hit with federal loansharking charges. He was indicted along with his brother, Theodore Jr., a reputed family soldier who was also charged with racketeering and weapons possession. Their cousin, Andrew D’Apice, named in the loansharking counts, rounded out the family gathering in Brooklyn Federal Court.

Carmine, 34, and D’Apice, 31, were released on bond. Theodore, 41, who was released from state prison last year after serving 16 years for drug dealing, was detained without bail, joining his father, uncle Carmine, and cousin Alphonse as Persico family members currently housed in federal prisons across the country.

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