For the first time in three tries, federal prosecutors convinced 12 jurors that John “Junior” Gotti ordered the kidnap-shooting of talk show host Curtis Sliwa, but yesterday’s mistrial was a sweet victory for the Junior Don.

He walked out of court believing that this was the government’s last shot and that the feds would not bring him to trial for a fourth time, according to a knowledgeable Gang Land source.

He’s probably right, a well-placed law enforcement official said, even though a “disappointed” U.S.Attorney Michael J. Garcia, in a brief statement he released after the mistrial was declared, left open the possibility that his office would seek to bring Gotti to trial a fourth time.

“The chances are slim and none that they’ll do it again,” the official told Gang Land.

Junior couldn’t agree more. “It’s enough now. They got to let go,” a smiling Gotti said as he told of his plans to enjoy a quiet life with his wife and six children, perhaps in the Midwest.

“If they let us alone, I’ll leave. I’ll take my family and go,” he said after Manhattan Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin declared a mistrial in the seventh day of deliberations in his third racketeering trial stemming from the brutal 1992 assault of Mr. Sliwa.

Junior said he might even go back to college.

Jurors who spoke to reporters later said the jury had agreed that Gotti was responsible for ordering the shooting of Mr. Sliwa in June 1992, as well as an earlier attack when three hoods beat him with baseball bats.

However, sources told Gang Land, four of the 12 jurors believed the arguments by lead defense attorney Charles Carnesi that Junior had quit the mob in 1999, making them unable to convict him of racketeering charges because they did not believe that he committed any crimes after 1999.

In order to find him guilty of racketeering, prosecutors had to prove that he committed at least one crime, known as a predicate act, in the five-year period before the indictment was filed, in 2004.

As the feds’ case against the Junior Don died a slow death in Manhattan, echoes of the bloodiest mob war in recent history — the Colombo family feud that left 12 dead from 1991 through 1993 — reverberated throughout the Brooklyn court system.

In federal court, acting boss Alphonse “Allie” Persico began trial for the 1999 murder of William “Wild Bill” Cutolo, the charismatic leader of the rebel dissidents who launched a shooting war aimed at toppling Persico and his jailed-for-life father, Carmine “Junior” Persico, the official family boss.

The younger Persico isn’t the only one still haunted by the old war. State prosecutors are moving forward with their own murder indictment against R. Lindley DeVecchio, a retired FBI supervisor who allegedly provided invaluable wartime help to the Persico group’s top gun during the bloodletting, capo Gregory Scarpa. The prosecution has sparked outspoken opposition by many of the nation’s top FBI agents who have a formed a defense committee and launched a Web site blasting the charges.

On the first day of the federal case against Persico, prosecutors quickly established a motive for the killing of Cutolo, whose body has never been found. Anthony Rotondo, a DeCavalcante capo turned government informer, told of numerous dealings and meetings he had with Wild Bill and his crew members before, during, and after the war.

Rotondo testified that he heard Cutolo refer to the elder Persico as a “rat” for admitting the existence of the Mafia during the historic 1985 Commission case. The witness also described Wild Bill as a Brooklyn-based “tough guy” who headed a murderous crew that killed several Persico loyalists during the 1990s conflict.

The Brooklyn-born Rotondo said his family followed the lead of late Gambino boss John Gotti and supported Cutolo’s faction, headed by Victor “Little” Vic Orena. During the war, he said, he often met with Cutolo and others at various places in Brooklyn for news about the conflict and to stay abreast of several rackets his family shared with Cutolo and his crew.

Under questioning by Assistant U.S. Attorney Katya Jestin, he also related that Wild Bill had predicted his own demise in 1998 soon after he was elevated to underboss from capo and Rotondo saw him “strutting around like a rooster.”

The forecast came after Alphonse Persico had asked the new underboss for an accounting of all his money-making rackets, Rotondo testified, recalling that when Wild Bill related the story, he added: “You know what’s happening next.”

Prompted by Ms. Jestin to explain his understanding of that last remark, Rotondo said: “Billy wouldn’t be around too long.”

In the state case stemming from the Colombo war, the Brooklyn district attorney claims Mr. DeVecchio became such a partisan for Persico’s top gunman that he helped him commit four murders between 1984 and 1992. To make its case, the DA’s office indicated in court papers last week that it plans to use allegations of wrongdoing that were lodged against Mr. DeVecchio a decade ago by FBI agents and federal prosecutors.

Mr. DeVecchio’s attorneys are seeking to move the case into federal court, which they feel is a more sympathetic venue.

Regardless of where the case is heard, the defense is ready, Mr. DeVecchio’s lawyer, Mark Bederow, said. “We’re focused on preparing a vigorous defense for Lin, who is innocent of all of these allegations,” he said.

In its filing, Assistant District Attorney Noel Downey pressed a request for two documents that detail critical statements by a former federal prosecutor during a two-year FBI inquiry into Mr. DeVecchio’s dealings with Scarpa, who was a top echelon informer for the agent for 12 years.

In a five-page letter, Mr. Downey ripped the Brooklyn U.S. attorney’s office for refusing to comply with a subpoena for the material. The office said Mr. Downey had failed to show, as federal regulations require, how it was relevant to his case.

Mr. Downey said the documents are relevant because they detail a “clear pattern of criminal conduct between DeVecchio and Scarpa” during the same timeframe that the ex-agent and his informer allegedly committed four murders together. Mr. DeVecchio is charged with providing Scarpa with information about the four victims, including one woman, that he knew the gangster would kill.

The DA’s letter prompted an angry retort by Assistant U.S. Attorney Gail Matthews, who wrote that his remarks were “inappropriate” in light of the reams of material her office had provided in the past year. She said her office had already provided the DA’s office with 2,020 pages of materials and much other help — including access to numerous witnesses. She said her office had not yet located one 12-year-old document, but had long ago turned over the other — an FBI report of an interview of a former mob prosecutor — with what she said were only “minor redactions.”

Indeed, the redacted version contains nine allegations of wrongdoing by Mr. DeVecchio, including that he was overheard by a fellow agent telling Scarpa that crewmember Carmine Imbriale was cooperating on February 27, 1992, a few hours after he began talking to the feds, according to a copy obtained by Gang Land.

This accusation was corroborated, according to the six-page report by agents Patrick Welch and Richard Lambert, by two Scarpa crew members who later cooperated and reported being told by Scarpa that “Imbriale had to be killed because he was a ‘rat.'”

In any event, prosecutor Matthews wrote, now that Mr. Downey has given reasons why the documents are relevant, the feds are reconsidering his request, and are searching for the still-missing document, a letter that then-prosecutor Ellen Corcella wrote to the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility about the DeVecchio-Scarpa relationship.

Gang Land won’t presume to tell prosecutors how to conduct their business, but Messrs. Matthews and Downey might want to reach out to Ms. Corcella, now in private practice in Indianapolis.

She declined to provide Gang Land a copy of her letter, which has no subpoena power, but noted wryly that neither office has contacted her about her letter: “If I am subpoenaed I would honor it, unless there’s an appropriate motion to quash,” she said.

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