Say this for Gambino capo Dominick “Skinny Dom” Pizzonia: He’s a man the mob could always rely on to safeguard its family values.

In 1992, when a foolhardy husband-and-wife robbery team preyed on mob social clubs, Skinny Dom, in the ultimate display of Scrooge-like callousness, allegedly blew them away as they shopped for holiday gifts on Christmas Eve in Ozone Park, Queens, where he lived.

It wasn’t his first time enforcing mob manners. Four years earlier, when a lowlife son-in-law of a mob capo broke a cardinal wiseguy rule by slapping around an imprisoned capo’s wife, Skinny Dom was up to the task when his mob superiors called upon him to provide retribution, sources said.

According to court papers, Pizzonia, 64, used his mob social club – the Cafe Liberty, located at 84-10 Liberty Ave. in Queens – as a killing field for the wayward relative, Francesco Boccia, 26, whose body has never been found.

Skinny Dom will be indicted soon – as early as today, Gang Land has learned – for the 1988 execution-style slaying of Boccia, who was pronounced guilty by a jury of his mob peers for beating the wife of capo Anthony “Fat Andy” Ruggiano. Fat Andy was then doing time for racketeering.

“The hit was sanctioned by John [Gotti] and took place after a sitdown,” a law enforcement source said.

Boccia, a low-level hoodlum who had been released from prison two years earlier, and Ruggiano’s daughter were living with her mother at the time.

Gambino family higher-ups may have approved Boccia’s rubout, but his widow never did. At her father’s wake in March 1999, some 11 years after her husband disappeared, “she accused Dom of killing her husband, and he told her to shut up or it might happen to her, too,” a Gang Land source said.

The 18-year-old murder charge is just the latest plot twist in a soap opera-like prosecution that began in September, when federal prosecutors in Brooklyn – with help from turncoat Mafia boss Joseph Massino – hit Skinny Dom with racketeering charges that included the murders of social club robbers Thomas and Rosemarie Uva.

Last month, a private investigator was hired to read court papers to Skinny Dom, who is illiterate. During a court proceeding, a federal judge quizzed his wife and three grown children to make sure Pizzonia understood the possible pitfalls of retaining lawyer Joseph Corozzo, a longtime family friend whose father is the crime family’s consigliere.

Over the government’s objections, Judge Jack Weinstein ruled that while the conflict of interest issues were a close call, Mr. Corozzo could stay on the case provided that another lawyer questioned prosecution witness Michael “Mikey Scars” DiLeonardo, a turncoat capo who claims that Mr. Corozzo once represented him.

For his part, Mr. Corozzo denies DiLeonardo’s assertions and has rejected Judge Weinstein’s suggestion that he retain his own lawyer and step aside rather than run the risk of aiding prosecutors in their stated efforts to bring criminal charges against him. He also has blasted the feds for using smear tactics – they describe him as “house counsel” for the Gambinos – he says are based on his heritage, not his deeds.

So far, the lawyer has more than held his own.

Last week, for example, prosecutors, who had detained Skinny Dom for more than three months on the grounds that two alleged murders made him a danger to the community, agreed to let him out of prison on the eve of his indictment for a third mob slaying. Mr. Corozzo’s refusal to withdraw, his belittlement of the prosecution’s case, and his demand for a speedy trial enabled the lawyer to engineer that intriguing deal.

Pizzonia wasn’t home for Christmas, but he was there to celebrate New Year’s Day with his family – and thanks to a $3 million bond posted by family and close friends, he’ll be there at least until June. Pizzonia now faces trial for three murders instead of two. If convicted, he faces the same penalty: life behind bars.

Prosecutors Mitra Hormozi, Joey Lipton, and Deborah Mayer declined to discuss their reasons for agreeing to strict house arrest provisions for Skinny Dom. The decision has the obvious benefit of enabling them to add a murder charge to an existing indictment. Perhaps more important, they have another six months to obtain additional evidence to bolster all their allegations against Pizzonia.

Mr. Corozzo believes the new murder charge is a delaying tactic that would not have been used “if they were ready for trial,” adding that he expects his client to prevail. “The first murder charge is tissue thin,” he said, describing the allegations as “common gossip.” He said the Boccia murder charge is “even less than that.”

Trial is still six months off, but plenty of twists and turns, both scheduled and unplanned, are sure to pop up in the continuing saga of Skinny Dom and the social club murders.

Yesterday, for example, over the objections of Mr. Lipton, Judge Weinstein granted Pizzonia permission for a one-time, six-hour visit to his ailing 88-year-old mother – provided that a member of Mr. Corozzo’s law firm accompanies him – and for Skinny Dom to attend Mass on Sundays as long as he pays for a deputy U.S. marshal to serve as his chaperone.

Later this month, Mr. Corozzo is scheduled to spar with DiLeonardo over the mob defector’s claims that the lawyer represented him and, since getting out of law school in 1992, has been on the crime family’s payroll as “house counsel.”

Last month, Judge Weinstein obviated the need for an earlier face-off with his ruling calling for another attorney to cross-examine Mikey Scars. Last week, however, the judge agreed to revisit the issue and scheduled a hearing for January 25.

Ms. Hormozi argued that the underlying facts in Mr. Corozzo’s situation were the same as those in a landmark appeals court ruling that reversed the conviction of police officer Charles Schwarz in the torture beating of Abner Louima.

In that case, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Mr. Schwarz’s lawyer had a conflict of interest – dual loyalties to his client and the police union that retained him – that Mr. Schwarz could not waive. In this case, she argued, Mr. Corozzo has a similar conflict of interest between Pizzonia and the Gambino family and should be disqualified from the case.

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