In a real-life drama that could qualify as a “Bada Bing” episode of “The Sopranos,” a Russian woman charged with secretly importing women into the country to be topless dancers claims her lawyer threatened to sabotage her federal extortion case if she rejected sex with him.

Viktoriya I’lina, who allegedly got nude-dancing gigs for dozens of illegal Russian emigres at three New Jersey strip joints, has charged attorney Larry Bronson with trying to coerce her into bed through threats made “both in person and by telephone.”

On October 8, according to a complaint filed in Brooklyn Criminal Court, Mr. Bronson told Ms. I’lina while she was at her home in Coney Island that if she did not sleep with him, she was “going to pay in blood and spend the rest of [her] life in jail.”

Five days later, Mr. Bronson, 59, was arrested by Brooklyn police on misdemeanor coercion charges that could land him a year in jail. After a night at the Brooklyn House of Detention, he was released on his own recognizance. A status conference is scheduled for January 13.

In a related proceeding in Manhattan Federal Court last month (the complicated chronicle has played out in three courts over 15 months), Mr. Bronson’s lawyer, David Lewis, indicated that Mr. Bronson and Ms. I’lina, 40, had a “physical relationship” that she wanted to end.

The allegations against Mr. Bronson, a veteran lawyer who has represented scores of wiseguys, are not his only legal problem. As Gang Land reported in February, he is also under investigation for obstruction of justice, a charge stemming from tape-recorded meetings he had with two Bonanno mobsters last year.

Mr. Bronson has denied wrongdoing in that case, and he vehemently denied the accusations lodged against him by Ms. I’lina. “There was no relationship. There were no threats by me. It’s all a lie, completely made up,” he told Gang Land. “She is a deranged woman who is doing things that she thinks will be helpful in her criminal case.”

His problems with his client began, Mr. Bronson said, when he advised her that “if she continued to engage in certain conduct that the government viewed as obstruction of justice it could result in more serious charges against her and her husband.”

Her husband and co-defendant in the smuggling case, Lev Trakhtenberg, 40, told Gang Land he had no information about the charges his wife had lodged against Mr. Bronson. “This is like a private things between her and him that I am not aware of,” he said.

After many co-defendant meetings in the 2-year-old case, however, he said he formed a positive opinion about Mr. Bronson’s lawyering. “He seems to be a fine lawyer to me,” he said.

Ms. I’lina could not be reached. A police source said she has tapes of Mr. Bronson “threatening her.”

The steamy saga began in August 2003, when Mr. Bronson began representing Ms. I’lina.

A year earlier, she and her husband were indicted by a federal grand jury in Newark as the leaders of a smuggling ring. They allegedly lured Russian women into the U.S. and then threatened them – and families left behind – with violence via Russian mob figures if they did not work six days a week as nude dancers and fork over $1,200 a week from their earnings.

Along with a third defendant, the husband-and-wife team kept the women isolated in sparsely furnished apartments in Brooklyn, maintaining control by confiscating passports, work visas, and return plane tickets, according to a 12-count indictment. Work visas were obtained by falsely claiming to immigration officials that the women were musicians or actresses with special talents who would be touring the country with Russian show groups.

Instead of appearances at the Department of Performing Arts at the University of Illinois in Chicago, the women performed lap dances at Delilah’s Den clubs in South Amboy and Lakewood, N.J., and at Frank’s Chicken House in Manville, N.J. The clubs were not involved in any wrongdoing, authorities said.

According to a written opinion by a Newark federal judge, John Lifland, the case proceeded smoothly until “I’lina began complaining about the representation provided to her by Mr. Bronson” a few months ago.

That’s when she wrote the judge a letter “expressing concern about the relationship” between Mr. Bronson and her husband, citing checks that Mr. Bronson had given to David Lewis to represent her husband in a related New York case, the judge wrote.

“I’lina characterizes this as the ‘grossest betrayal’ of her by her attorney, and the Court is bewildered as to why Mr. Bronson would be meeting with, and funding the representation of a co-defendant whose interests could be adverse to those of his own client,” wrote Judge Lifland.

To say the least, Ms. I’lina and Mr. Trakhtenberg are an unusual couple. They live in the same house and are both naturalized citizens and alleged co-conspirators, but they have been officially separated for more that 10 years.

Citing Ms. I’lina’s “constant and extreme dissatisfaction with his representation and his conduct in this and other contexts,” as well as an “appearance of impropriety,” Judge Lifland bounced Mr. Bronson from the case 12 days after his Brooklyn arrest, on October 25.

The following week, in Manhattan, Mr. Trakhtenberg pleaded guilty to extortion charges, agreeing to accept up to 46 months in prison for threats lodged against a nude dancer that forced her into prostitution, in a plea bargain worked out by a Newark assistant U.S. attorney, Leslie Schwartz.

Before Judge Denise Cote permitted Mr. Trakhtenberg to enter a plea, however, she detailed the convoluted situation involving him, his wife, Mr. Bronson, and attorney Lewis, and, because of the intertwined connections among them all, made Mr. Trakhtenberg waive any possible claim of conflict.

During the proceeding, Mr. Lewis said his understanding of Ms. I’lina’s charges against Mr. Bronson was that they stemmed from “her failure to continue their physical relationship.” In addition to retaining Mr. Lewis, Mr. Bronson had also been paying him to represent Mr. Trakhtenberg in both his Manhattan and Newark cases.

Asked why, Mr. Lewis responded: “My understanding is that Mr. Trakhtenberg is broke and Bronson has agreed to lend Mr. Trakhtenberg this money.”

“Why?” Judge Cote repeated.

“They are friends,” said Mr. Lewis, quickly adding, “That’s the answer I’ve gotten. At the end of the day it has absolutely nothing to do with the co-defendant in New Jersey [Ms. I’lina], nor is there anything that compromises representation of Trakhtenberg in this situation by Bronson paying the fees.”

Yesterday, Mr. Trakhtenberg pleaded guilty in Newark to engaging in a broad-based conspiracy that between 1999 and 2002 fraudulently brought Russian women into the U.S. and compelled them to work as topless dancers.

Meanwhile, sources say, the FBI and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn continue to look into possible obstruction of justice and criminal contempt charges against Mr. Bronson stemming from a meeting he had in his office on May 23, 2003, with wiseguys Louis “Louie Ha Ha” Attanasio and James “Big Louie” Tartaglione.

This column and other news of organized crime will appear later today on Ganglandnews.com.