Manhattan federal prosecutors yesterday labeled Peter Gotti and Thomas Carbonaro – alleged Gambino crime family boss and soldier, respectively – as extorters and loan sharks who conspired to murder Salvatore Gravano, whose testimony helped send the former Gambino boss, John Gotti, to spend the last 10 years of his life behind bars.

Peter Gotti, who is serving a nine-year sentence on an extortion conviction, spent his 65th birthday sitting in a courtroom while prosecutors accused him of shaking down construction contractors and hatching a plot with Carbonaro to kill “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, who is serving time for running an Ecstasy distribution ring at Arizona.

“You could go into business with the Gambino family or face the business end of a baseball bat,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Vincent Ho said in describing the violent extortion activities of the Gambinos.

Former Gambino members and associates will testify against Gotti and Carbonaro, according to prosecutors.

Defense lawyer Joseph Bondy, meanwhile, said Gotti was guilty only of being a Gotti, that he is an innocent city sanitation worker who retired in 1980 after falling off a garbage truck.

“Peter Gotti is not John Gotti,” said Mr. Bondy. “He’s not a family. He’s a 65-year-old man. He’s blind in one eye. Today happens to be his birthday. He’s not an evil in your neighborhood. He’s not a pox in your street.”

“Huck” Carbonaro was portrayed by Mr. Ho as a violent thug who aided in two separate assassinations of mobsters who had fallen under suspicion of being government informants, in addition to trying to kill Gravano.

Mr. Ho said Carbonaro traveled to Phoenix, where Gravano was living openly after serving a five-year sentence for 19 murders. He was released after cooperating with the federal government in testifying against John Gotti, who later died of throat cancer in prison. Carbonaro allegedly intended to kill Gravano with the help of Salvatore “Fat Sal” Mangiavillano, a bank burglar who is facing a lengthy prison sentence and plans to testify against Carbonaro.

Carbonaro and Mangiavillano’s plans to travel to Arizona to kill Gravano were derailed when their intended victim was arrested for running the Ecstasy ring. “Just before their trip, they would learn that Gravano would be arrested by state and federal authorities on drug charges and they could no longer reach him,” said Mr. Ho.

Carbonaro is also accused of driving the “decoy car” in the August 8, 1990, killing of associate Eddie Garofalo at Brooklyn and the April 28, 1998, killing of Frank Hydell at Staten Island. In both cases, Carbonaro allegedly drove behind the getaway car to throw police off the trail of the killers.

Prosecutors said Carbonaro succeeded in distracting police from the trail in the Garofalo slaying by running a red light. Police pulled over Carbonaro, according to Mr. Ho, and were unable to apprehend the killers.

“Huck did his job that night,” said Mr. Ho. “He distracted the police and the killers were able to speed away.”

Carbonaro’s lawyer, Martin Geduldig, admitted that his client was not a “good guy” but said he was innocent of murder charges and was not the “bad guy” the government made him out to be.

Both defense attorneys pointed to what they claimed was a lack of evidence and discredited the prosecutors’ use of incarcerated mobsters as cooperating witnesses.

“These are witnesses who are motivated by freedom,” said Mr. Bondy. “All of these people are going to come out of court, straight out of central casting, and point the finger at Peter Gotti.”