You say capo, I say consigliere

Frank Gangi, a wannabe mobster, was a high-class burglar and a low-class drug dealer and killer when he was arrested for drunken driving after a police chase in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, in April 1990.

He was taken to the 62nd Precinct and absolutely floored the cops, who were pissing and moaning about all the paperwork they had ahead of them.

He told them he was a serial killer and wanted to confess his sins, tell authorities where the bodies were buried, cooperate and start a new life for himself. "The feds have already approached me. Now I'm ready," Gangi said.

Gangi made good on his promise. He served up Bonanno mobster Thomas (Tommy Karate) Pitera for a litany of brutal murders that landed Pitera in federal prison for life and earned Gangi a new lease on his.

Most of the victims -- authorities dug up the remains of five -- were dismembered and buried in marshland on Staten Island by Pitera and Gangi, who admitted roles in five slayings, including a woman.

"I still have hope for you; you still will have a chance for a life, which is more than those five people you killed will," Judge Reena Raggi of the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn told Gangi as she sentenced him to 10 years, a light term justified by his cooperation.

But some gangsters want everything. He bitched about the length of the sentence and appealed the judge's refusal to reduce it. He finally shut up and did the time. His new life began in December, when he got out of prison after serving eight and a half years and was given a new identity under the federal Witness Protection Program.

Within a few months, Gangi, now 41, had been arrested twice for drunk driving in his new hometown and jailed for violating his parole. He was hauled back to Brooklyn and on June 15 made a personal plea behind sealed courtroom doors to Raggi. She gave him another chance and released him with the caveat that he undergo alcohol counseling, seek and maintain a job and report once a week to parole officials.

Pitera, who berated Gangi after he appealed his sentence for "weeping and whimpering to the judge" instead of taking his punishment "like a man," couldn't be reached for comment at Leavenworth. But Pitera's trial lawyer, Mathew Mari, had this reaction: "This slap on the wrist bolsters Tommy's nine-year contention that Gangi was given a lifetime license to kill and can get away with anything and everything."

Gangi may still be weeping and whimpering to the judge, but he probably hasn't killed anyone, yet. He's had two chances to use the incredible but true story he used to dodge the drunken driving rap in Brooklyn nearly nine years ago and hasn't.

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