No matter which way he turns, the smoke keeps getting thicker around acting Bonanno capo Nicholas “P.J.” Pisciotti.

P.J. became a mob poster boy of sorts for Mayor Bloomberg’s Smoke Free Air Act last year when Gang Land disclosed that he allegedly sent a rival crime family associate to the hospital in a bloody Little Italy brawl sparked by the associate, the manager of a Broome Street eatery, telling P.J. and his pals they shouldn’t be lighting up inside his place. Pisciotti was scheduled for a May trial on assault charges in state Supreme Court in Manhattan.

Moments after the incident, Pisciotti readily admitted to punching out Joseph “Joe Clams” Caruso. “F— it. I did it,” he told cops, according to court papers. But P.J. later pleaded innocent, claiming that Joe Clams started the fisticuffs and he had merely defended himself.

Early this year, Pisciotti tried to put aside his cigarette-smoking battles and booked a trip to Miami and the anticipated donnybrook between the high-scoring Indianapolis Colts and the defense-minded Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI. Then things suddenly got worse.

On February 1, when P.J. arrived at John F. Kennedy Airport, FBI agents waiting there canceled his flight plans to the Sunshine State. The G-men charged him with violating federal laws pertaining to a different kind of smoke — marijuana — and promptly deposited him at the dreary federal lockup in Brooklyn.

Pisciotti’s new smoking infraction, according to a complaint by FBI agent Michael Breslin, concerns his alleged role in a lucrative marijuana business run by former acting boss Vincent “Vinny Gorgeous” Basciano. Between 2001 and 2004, the pot business allegedly moved some 6,000 pounds of ganja — which had an estimated wholesale value of $18 million — a year.

Each of those months, according to the complaint, Vinny Gorgeous and his partner, soldier Anthony “Bruno” Indelicato, received two 250-pound shipments from Canada that “were transported to New York by car and concealed in duffel bags.” They paid $2,300 a pound, then sold it to Pisciotti for $2,800 to $3,300 a pound, the complaint said.

For his part, P.J. purchased 25-pound loads that he broke down and distributed on his own, the complaint, which was based largely on information provided by Basciano’s former right-hand man, turncoat mobster Dominick Cicale, said.

Cicale reported that following Basciano’s November 2004 arrest, Pisciotti was hopeful that another “load might be coming from Canada” because P.J. “had customers to sell to,” the complaint, which described Pisciotti, 37, as a “knock-around guy,” said.

As a knock-around guy who had already done four years in prison for a 1990 drug rap, P.J. quickly realized that his cigarette smoking assault case was the least of his worries.

He now faced up to 20 years for drug trafficking, and a U.S. magistrate judge ordered him held without bail after a federal prosecutor, assistant U.S. attorney Amy Busa, cited his violent actions against Joe Clams, another alleged assault a year earlier, as well as an alleged plot to murder Basciano’s successor as acting boss, Michael “Mikey Nose” Mancuso.

The case against P.J. was an obvious spin-off of the ongoing prosecution of Basciano, whose retrial for the 2001 murder of Fred Santoro began last month. Cicale has testified against Vinny Gorgeous, and Ms. Busa and Mr. Breslin of the FBI are part of a seven-member prosecution trial team.

As rapidly as Pisciotti’s situation had deteriorated, however, it got better. And then some.

On February 21, he was released on a $3 million bond after a judge decided that Ms. Busa’s evidence that he was a danger to the community was thin, and that property posted by friends and relatives as security was enough to ensure his future court appearances.

Little did Judge Robert Levy know that future appearances would not be necessary. Two weeks later, without explanation, Ms. Busa moved to drop the drug charges against P.J.

Two months later, he got an even better gift when he showed up for his assault trial and a Manhattan assistant district attorney, David Hammer, said he was dropping those charges. This was better than Ms. Busa’s dismissal because unlike the federal charges — which can be filed again — New York’s double jeopardy statutes bar the district attorney’s office from resurrecting its case.

By way of explanation, Mr. Hammer said the case had been taken over by the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Roslynn Mauskopf, whose office in Brooklyn had hit Pisciotti with drug charges in February and then dropped them the following month.

That explanation seems a bit thin, however. It’s hard to imagine how the feds could turn an assault in a dispute over the city’s anti-smoking law into a racketeering charge. And even if they could, they’d be able to do it whether P.J’s assault case ended in a conviction or an acquittal.

Perhaps Mr. Hammer thought the self-defense claim — put forth by lawyer Jeremy Schneider when Gang Land broke the story last fall — would fly, and he dropped the charges rather than wage a losing battle. After all, videotapes turned over to the defense clearly showed that Joe Clams and his cronies had thrown the first punches.

A spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney’s office simply repeated what Mr. Hammer told Judge Michael Obus on May 10, and declined any further comment.

Spokesmen for the FBI and Ms. Mauskopf were equally closedmouth about the short-lived federal drug case against P.J.

Ms. Mauskopf’s spokesman, Robert Nardoza, cited a gag order by the judge at Basciano’s trial as his reason for declining to comment.

VINNIE GORGEOUS, TAKE 2 OR TAKE TOO MANY?

Meanwhile, as P.J. looks over his shoulder, wondering where his next problem will come from, Basciano’s retrial drones on, with the jury expected to get the case by the end of the month.

The key question in Gang Land’s mind is not whether the jury will reach a unanimous verdict this time — the prior one found him guilty of racketeering but was hung, 11–1 for conviction, on the Santoro murder — but why Ms. Mauskopf’s office is retrying Vinny Gorgeous now.

Basciano, 47, was sure to get the maximum 20 years for his racketeering conviction. Brooklyn U.S. District Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis gave 68-year-old co-defendant Patrick “Patty From The Bronx” DeFilippo 40 years for his conviction. And Vinny Gorgeous still faces another trial in which he faces life, and possible execution, if found guilty of a 2004 contract killing.

Asked why trying Basciano again at this time wasn’t a waste of time and money since Ms. Mauskopf could have found a way to retry him on the Santoro murder later if Vinny Gorgeous won an acquittal in the capital punishment case, her spokesman, Mr. Nardoza, declined to comment, again giving the ongoing trial as his reason.

EMBATTLED ILA PRESIDENT TO STEP DOWN

The president of the International Longshoremen’s Association, John Bowers — the focal point of a civil racketeering suit that seeks to rid the scandal-tarred dockworkers’ union of mob influence — is likely to resign his post at the ILA’s international convention in Hollywood, Fla., later this month, Gang Land has learned.

The 82-year-old union boss, whose father was a much-feared waterfront enforcer in his day, has already announced that he is retiring as president of the ILA’s powerful Atlantic Coast District. But Mr. Bowers has also stated that he expects to step down as ILA president as well, according to an ILA spokesman, Jim McNamara.

“He has not indicated officially what his intentions are regarding the ILA presidency, but he’s told friends that he’s probably going to retire,” Mr. McNamara told Gang Land. “He hasn’t said it officially yet, but that’s what he has told friends,” Mr. McNamara, reached on his way to the two-week convention, added.

This column and other news of organized crime will be available today at ganglandnews.com.