Meeting his pals costs mob figure

Warned by his probation officer to stay away from the mob, reputed mob associate Marty Angelina, 44, just couldn't stop chatting with his buddies.

In the nearly 14 months since his release from federal prison, he bumped into reputed mob boss Joseph Ligambi at Angelina's 8-year-old daughter's recital in New Jersey and talked to a co-defendant at Chickie's and Pete's, a sports bar in South Philly.

Angelina ran into Steven Frangipani, 44, a reputed mob associate convicted with him and mob boss Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino in a 2001 racketeering trial.

But it was Angelina's unreported contacts that got him in trouble:

He set up meetings with Frangipani during an FBI wiretapped call in an ongoing mob probe and talked to accused drug dealer Damion Canilichio, the ex-top aide of jailed mob underboss Steve Mazzone, said Assistant U.S. Attorney David Fritchey.

Nervously biting his cheek, a slimmed-down Angelina told U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick: "I've made bad choices," but he promised it wouldn't happen again.

Yesterday, Surrick sent Angelina to prison for four months for violating conditions of his supervised release - less than the 10 months recommended by probation officer James Muth.

The judge gave him until Feb. 5 to report to prison.

Defense attorney Jack McMahon called the judge's decision "fair."

McMahon told the judge that Angelina tried to turn around his life and care for his wife and two children, after nearly five years in federal prison for racketeering and conspiracy.

Two months after his Nov. 28, 2005 release, Angelina and his wife, Lauren, started a floor-covering business which grossed $60,000 last year. He paid taxes and all but $1,100 of his $5,000 fine, McMahon said.

Fritchey argued that Angelina knew better than to talk to mobsters because he was working with Merlino when Merlino was sent back to prison for similar violations in the 1990s.

Fritchey urged the judge to send a message to other mobsters, due to be released in the next five years, that they cannot associate with each other or they will be sent back to jail.

McMahon and Fritchey concurred that the mob contacts were not criminal, but violations of his probation.

"Sometimes it's hard to give up your old friends," McMahon said. "But in his case, he has to."

Yesterday, Angelina wasn't the only wannabe gangster hauled before a federal judge.

Victor DiPietro, who found mob wannabe John "Johnny Gongs" Casasanto fatally shot on his kitchen floor in an unsolved 2003 murder, pleaded not guilty to a 17-count federal drug indictment at his arraignment.

Last Tuesday, he was charged in the federal indictment and in a state attorney general criminal complaint on drug-trafficking charges.

DiPietro was accused by the feds of distributing marijuana, and of distributing cocaine 11 times, including six times within 1000 feet of a Catholic grade school, between February and August in 2005.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Labor urged the judge to hold DiPietro in custody, since he's facing up to 40 years in prison if convicted.

But U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles B. Smith released DiPietro on $250,000 bail secured by his mother's home, provided he wears a monitoring device.

The late Casasanto's brother, Steven, showed up for DiPietro's hearing.

John Casasanto was a suspect in the 2002 unsolved murder of mobster Raymond "Long John" Martorano, who tried to take back the mob, according to law enforcement sources. *