Mob lawyer Joseph Corozzo isn’t the kind of guy who takes things lying down.

The pugnacious attorney, whose father and uncle are high-ranking mobsters, has lashed out at the feds, accusing them of hurling gossip, lies, and using other smear tactics in an effort to oust him from the murder trial of a Gambino family capo who has been a lifelong friend.

In a point-by-point retort to allegations that he was “house counsel” to the crime family and had been nominated to be a “made man,” Mr. Corozzo blasted the feds for acting in “bad faith” by blaming him for the reputed sins of his father and uncle.

“It is unfair and unduly cruel to judge counsel’s ability to be a good and ethical advocate for his client based solely upon his family,” Mr. Corozzo said. His client, Dominick “Skinny Dom” Pizzonia, is charged with the Christmas Eve 1992 revenge murders of a husband and wife team who had robbed numerous mob social clubs earlier that year.

Mr. Corozzo, whose father, Joseph, is the Gambino consigliere and whose uncle, Nicholas “Little Nick” Corozzo, is a feared capo and heir apparent to the family throne, has represented them and countless other wiseguys since he became a lawyer in 1991.

In court papers, Brooklyn federal prosecutors charged earlier this month that Mr. Corozzo’s “loyalties to his father and uncle” and his representation of 30 other named wiseguys “implicated” him as a co-conspirator in the same “racketeering conspiracy” as his client and warranted his disqualification.

Those aren’t the lawyer’s only “conflicts of interest,” they wrote. He is the “subject” of two ongoing criminal investigations, once represented a government witness in the case, and represents two mobsters who allegedly took part with Pizzonia in the murders of Thomas and Rosemarie Uva.

“There is no case law supporting the government’s assertions that the family one was born into is a sufficient ground with which to disqualify an attorney’s representation of a defendant,” Mr. Corozzo wrote in his own brief, adding that in 15 years as a lawyer he has never before been bounced from a case because of his lineage.

For prosecutors to implicate him along with his clients without filing any charges against him, he wrote, “is patently unfair, illogical, and an affront to the criminal defense bar as a whole.”

Mr. Corozzo made no apologies for his clients, asserting that government persecution has made it hard to attract other clients. “For the better part of 15 years,” Mr. Corozzo stated, prosecutors have been charging him with conflict of interest with reputed mobsters. “This kind of notoriety hampers [my] ability to maintain a white-collar crime client base.”

The government’s theory that he was proposed for induction into the Gambino family was “idle chatter” between two wiseguys – one a well-known gossip, Gregory DePalma – and “does not implicate counsel in any way,” Mr. Corozzo wrote.

Mr. Corozzo concedes that he is under investigation in two criminal matters – he readily volunteers that he has testified before grand juries four times since 1996 – but notes that Pizzonia, like many clients in “numerous” other cases, would waive any “potential conflict.”

Regarding his law firm’s representation of two mobsters – Ronald “Ronny One Arm” Trucchio and John “Johnny Beano” Setaro – who allegedly took part in the Uvas’ murders, Mr. Corozzo argues that since neither is charged in the slayings, there is no conflict of interest between his obligations to them and to Skinny Dom.

Mr. Corozzo categorically denies the sole assertion that would result in a sure conflict of interest ouster – a contention by prosecution witness Michael “Mikey Scars” DiLeonardo that the lawyer represented him. And he seems to have the goods on Mikey Scars.

There is no record of DiLeonardo ever retaining Mr. Corozzo in any court case. As for the turncoat’s claim that he gave Mr. Corozzo a $1,000 check in April 2001 that was cashed at the Staten Island Savings Bank, Mr. Corozzo wrote that “no record of that check exists,” a fact authorities conceded to Gang Land.

Earlier this year, Mr. Corozzo was disqualified from the trial of John A. “Junior” Gotti because he had represented a mobster who was a member of Little Nick Corozzo’s crew and had previously defended two turncoats scheduled to testify as government witnesses, including Mikey Scars.

Citing testimony by DiLeonardo and another witness, Mr. Corozzo noted that much of the rationale Manhattan Judge Shira Scheindlin used to disqualify him was based on prosecutors’ assertions that were not borne out at trial and should be revisited. Brooklyn Federal Judge Jack Weinstein has scheduled a hearing on the issue for next month.

Assistant U.S. attorneys Mitra Hormozi and Winston Chan, who were scheduled to file a response yesterday, requested 10 additional days to reply to Mr. Corozzo’s papers. Other than to say that they would respond in court, the prosecutors declined to comment.

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Even millionaire gangsters cringe 1135 1237 1266 1248over coughing up an extra $50,000, especially when that’s not the deal they agreed to.

This fact of life became abundantly clear when a gaggle of Gambino gangsters and mob associates were in Brooklyn Federal Court this week going over their obligations to forfeit millions of dollars as part of their plea deals to resolve the largest consumer fraud in American history – a cool $750 million.

When attorney Gary Becker mentioned that his client, Zef Mustafa, had a total bill of $1.75 million, Mustafa, who has forked over $750,000 thus far, stood up, scowled, and motioned for his attorney to come over to him. After a brief confab, Mr. Becker resumed speaking to Judge Carol Amon, and then Mustafa beckoned his attorney again.

“My client has informed me that his forfeiture is $1.7 million,” Mr. Becker said sheepishly when he continued his colloquy with the Judge.

During the proceeding, Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Komitee charged Mustafa’s reputed mob supervisor, Salvatore “Tore” Locascio, with dragging his feet in selling his Scarsdale home to help satisfy his $4.7 million forfeiture, of which he still owes $3.6 million.

“Locascio needs to drop the price immediately,” Mr. Komitee said. “It should not take nine months to sell the property in this market.”

“Nobody benefits if these properties are sold at distressed prices,” Locascio’s attorney, Maurice Sercarz, countered, noting his client has dropped his price by $100,000.

As Messrs. Komitee and Sercarz sparred over the difficulties in negotiating a fair deal for his Westchester home before Locascio is sentenced in early December, Tore was in one of two homes he owns in Naples, Fla., fading in and out on a cell phone as Hurricane Wilma ravaged the Sunshine State.

Reached yesterday, Mr. Sercarz told Gang Land his client was still assessing the damage. “I thought it was a little over the top for the government to berate Tore for dragging his feet on the very day he was being blown around by the hurricane,” Mr. Sercarz said.

Meanwhile, other defendants were scrambling to meet their financial obligations before their respective sentencing day deadlines, from December 1 through December 15.

According to court records, mobster Richard Martino, the architect of the telephone and Internet porn fraud schemes at the heart of the case, owes $6.2 million of a $9.1 million bill; his brother Daniel has $500,000 remaining of his $1 million payment, and mobster Andrew “Andrew Campo” Campos owes $190,000 of a $300,000 forfeiture.

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