Joseph Massino used to hold one underworld record: The former Bonanno crime family big was the first full-fledged New York Mafia boss to become a federal informant. Now he has added another dubious achievement: He is the first ex-boss to flunk a lie-detector test.

Massino’s failure, Gang Land has learned, came after he initially sought to convince the FBI that Bonanno mobster Vincent “Vinny Gorgeous” Basciano was out to murder a federal prosecutor. Even despite his well-earned reputation for violence, the feds weren’t buying that outrageous notion when Massino first told them the story in December 2004.

Massino, who began efforts to cooperate soon after he was convicted of seven murders in July, was pushing hard for a deal, and the feds figured that Massino was pressing the envelope in an effort to escape death penalty charges for an eighth mob hit, sources said.

Massino persisted. He said Basciano had proposed whacking Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Andres that November, shortly after Vinny Gorgeous was arrested and incarcerated, and he offered to wear a wire to get evidence to prove it.

The feds finally agreed, sources said, provided Massino approved an unusual request — to take a lie detector test about the veracity of the stunning allegations.

The FBI and U.S. Marshals Service often administer polygraph tests, but only after a potential turncoat has passed muster as a viable cooperating witness. Their tests are used to ascertain that a candidate seeking protection from either agency is sincere about his intentions, and not a mole looking to undermine the security of a witness program or to kill another turncoat in a secure unit for protected witnesses.

Sure thing, said Massino, who was quickly hooked up to a machine, as FBI agents, federal prosecutors, and prison officials devised possible plans to enable Massino to spend time alone with Basciano at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

Even before the operation started, sources said, it came to a screeching stop when the polygraph machine found that Massino was lying.

That might have been the end of things for Massino as a government cooperator. Instead, even after the machine labeled him a liar, Massino persisted, insisting that his tale was true, sources said. The first mention of the idea by Vinny Gorgeous, Massino claimed, had come a few days after his arrest for a 2001 murder when both wiseguys ended up in a holding pen in Brooklyn Federal Court.

After back and forth discussions, sources said federal officials who were divided about using the Bonanno boss as an undercover operative decided to push ahead. FBI agents wired up Massino, and Bureau of Prisons officials arranged for him to meet with Basciano in an MDC recreation yard on January 3, 2005.

“There was nothing to lose,” a source said. “If Basciano says, ‘What the hell are you talking about, I never said that?’ or ‘C’mon, Bo, I was only kidding,’ the game’s over but we haven’t lost anything. But if he doesn’t protest in some way, then we know there was a real threat.”

As Gang Land reported last year, Basciano’s tape-recorded reaction was somewhere in the middle of both extremes each time Massino brought up the topic.

“Remember? We spoke about it in the bullpen,” began Massino, according to a transcript of the conversation obtained by Gang Land.” And you want to take the prosecutor out. What are we going to gain by it? What are you gonna gain if we take the prosecutor out?”

“Nothing,” said Basciano, before invoking a classic New York response to his inquisitive Mafia boss: “Fuhgeddaboudit.”

Each time Massino mentioned the plot again, Vinny Gorgeous had the same reply, “Forget about it.”

Massino’s efforts during another discussion four days later were also inconclusive, as Basciano uttered, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no,” when Massino expressed worry that he would be implicated in a murder plot because Vinny Gorgeous had told others about it.

That was as close to acknowledging the plot that Vinny Gorgeous ever got. Later that month, the feds, citing the taped conversations, filed an indictment charging Vinny Gorgeous with plotting to kill Mr. Andres.

In a ruling last year, Brooklyn Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis found the conversations to be inconclusive regarding the allegation that Basciano had previously expressed a “desire to harm the prosecutor.” The tapes, Judge Garaufis wrote, “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.”

For our money, Massino’s pitch to his old pal wasn’t very clever. Basciano’s real intentions might be much clearer today if, instead of questioning whether to whack the prosecutor, Massino had voiced approval and told Vinny Gorgeous to move on it.

Meanwhile, Basciano, who was convicted of racketeering charges in May by a jury that deadlocked on the 2001 murder charge, awaits a re-trial for that slaying,and a follow-up trial for another mob hit and the murder plot against Mr. Andres. His recently retained new lawyer, James Kousouros, said he was unable to comment because Judge Garaufis, at Mr. Andres’s request, impounded the tapes and all the other discovery material his prior lawyer used to defend his client.

Basciano’s former lawyer, Barry Levin, told Gang Land he stood by his prior remarks on the issue: “The entire episode was an invention of Joe Massino, a manipulative, Machiavellian, psychotic liar who invented the concept that Vinny conspired to kill a prosecutor so he could have credibility with the government.”

Massino’s lawyer, Edward McDonald, and the lead prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Seigel, declined to comment.

***

As we hope is the case with most readers, mobsters put a lot of faith in what they read in this space. Sometimes, however, they jump to conclusions, which is always a dangerous impulse in Gang Land.

For nearly a week in the spring of 2004, Genovese wiseguys were abuzz about our exclusive report on May 20 that Mario Gigante would take over the following month as acting boss for his then-incarcerated brother, Vincent “Chin” Gigante, who died last year.

At the Omni Fitness Center in Pelham Manor, at Mario’s Restaurant on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, and at Agostino’s Restaurant in New Rochelle, a gaggle of gangsters and one of their girlfriends were overheard discussing the accuracy of the column, according to a report that prosecutors filed with Manhattan Federal Judge Barbara Jones.

During one talk, longtime lawyer/associate Peter Peluso raved that the column reported “word for word” what Mario Gigante had recently told capo John “Buster” Ardito — “that Mario would take control of the family once his supervised release term was completed.”

After Mr. Peluso speculated that Gang Land’s source was “the guy driving Quiet Dom [Cirillo] around,” Ardito said that “the big guy” (whom the feds believe to be capo Ernest Muscarella) “wanted to hit” Quiet Dom’s driver for his assumed transgression.

Gang Land never discusses confidential sources, but we’re certainly gratified to learn from sources that nothing untoward happened to Quiet Dom’s driver, whoever he was.

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