They’re getting the gang back together.

Notorious Gambino crime family hitman Joey Testa will be out on the streets in April after 35 years behind bars, the Federal Bureau of Prisons announced — just weeks after The Post reported on the release of Testa’s partner Anthony Senter, the other half of the murderous duo known as the Gemini Twins.

Both Testa, 69, and Senter, 68, were paroled after serving a fraction of the life-plus-20-year sentences they were handed in 1989 for participating in at least 11 murders, the feds confirmed.

“Joey’s had serious medical problems for years, and he has done well in prison,” Testa’s attorney Linda Sheffield told The Post.

“Those are things that play into setting a release date.”

In the 1970s and 1980s, Testa and Senter belonged to a mob crew run by Gambino made man Roy DeMeo.

The crew used the Gemini Lounge at 4021 Flatlands Ave. in Flatlands, Brooklyn, as the launchpad for murders, car thefts, drug trafficking and other crimes.

“It was a regular blue-collar place,” a one-time Gemini Lounge regular recalled of the bar, which has since become a storefront church.

“You didn’t know that there was a murderous maniac running around.”

The inseparable Testa and Senter, pals since childhood, spent so much time at their boss’s hangout that they were dubbed the Gemini Twins.

Federal and city authorities traced at least 75 deaths and disappearances to DeMeo’s crew — and independent researchers put their savage toll at more than 200.

Witnesses for the prosecution in Testa’s 1989 trial revealed that those marked for death would be lured to an apartment-turned-slaughterhouse next to the Gemini Lounge.

“When the [victim] would walk in, somebody would shoot him in the head with a silencer,” former gang member Dominick Mantigilio told the court.

“Somebody would wrap a towel around to stop the blood and somebody would stab him in the heart to stop the blood from pumping.”

Crew members would haul their prey into the bathtub to let his blood drain away, then “take him apart and package him,” Mantigilio testified — dumping the body parts in a nearby landfill.

Many of the gang’s alleged targets were never found.

The gruesome murders were “so horrendous and so inhumane and so unbelievable,” US District Court Judge Vincent L. Broderick said at Testa’s 1989 sentencing, that “the only sane course” was to send him to prison for life.

But because his crimes were committed prior to 1987, when new federal sentencing guidelines kicked in, Testa became eligible for parole after serving just 10 years of his lifetime term, according to the US Parole Commission.

Nephew and godson Tony Testa, 44, said the family is thrilled to see the ex-mobster set free.

“The Lord is amazing,” said Testa, a real estate developer in Commack, Long Island.

“Uncle Joey did his time, he never complained. And the parole board saw that he’s served his penance.”

Tony Testa – who bills his family as “The Kennedys of Cosa Nostra” on social media — has tried to spin his uncle’s infamy into pop-culture gold.

A self-proclaimed “mob rapper,” he has released two albums — complete with a grisly music video dramatizing the DeMeo crew’s bloody execution technique.

“Hey, that’s entertainment,” he said.

“I’m a law-abiding citizen, but I’ll use what I can, you know?”

While Senter, scheduled to be released in June, is already living in a New York City halfway house, Testa will likely reside with his wife JoAnn, 71, in Nevada, Sheffield said.

The couple has two grown daughters and two grandchildren.

“He is not well enough to go to a halfway house,” the attorney said.

“He’ll go home.”

But locals suspect the dual release signals new revelations to come.

“There’s a rumor going around that when those guys get out, they’ll spill the beans,” the former Gemini Lounge patron said.

“They know where a lot of bodies are buried. There is no reason for them to be let out unless they’ve been cooperating with someone.”

This article was originally posted here

Just when he thought he was out of court, they may pull him back in.

The racketeering case against the ex-husband of “Real Housewives of New Jersey” star Dina Manzo was dismissed – but he’ll likely be re-indicted in a slate of “quite serious” mob-related crimes.

Tommy Manzo was accused of hiring a soldier from the Lucchese crime family to rough up his famous ex-wife’s new beau — but his attorneys filed for the dismissal in January on grounds that the years-old case had taken too long and violated the federal Speedy Trial Act.

The feds agreed — but asked in their own filing that Newark federal Judge Susan Wigenton dismiss the case without prejudice so they could re-indict the troubled 58-year-old from the ritzy suburb of Franklin Lakes, New Jersey.

And that’s exactly what the judge did late last month, issuing a Feb. 22 order that cast the case aside but which allowed prosecutors to still shoot for an April trial — provided they secure another grand jury indictment before then.

“The charged offenses are unquestionably serious,” Wigenton wrote, adding that the breadth of the alleged crimes and the substantial prison sentence Manzo faces weighed in prosecutors’ favor.

Still, Manzo’s lawyers celebrated the ruling.

“Mr. Manzo is pleased that the court dismissed the indictment,” defense attorney Zach Intrater said in a statement. “He is looking to move forward with his life and career.”

A spokesman for the New Jersey US Attorney’s Office declined to comment.

Wigenton’s ruling is the latest turn in the years-long legal saga that began when the feds indicted Manzo in 2020 for allegedly cutting a deal with mob capo John Perna to beat up David Cantin, Dina Manzo’s then-boyfriend.

In return, the restaurateur promised Perna — the son of reputed Lucchese capo Ralph Perna — a deeply discounted wedding at Manzo’s catering hall, The Brownstone in Paterso.

“Manzo was outraged that his former wife became romantically involved with another man,” prosecutors said in court documents. “Rather than accept that, as law-abiding individuals do, Manzo wanted to extract physical revenge. Unwilling or incapable of doing so directly, he leveraged his catering hall.”

Perna and a member of his crew allegedly caught up with Cantin in the parking lot of a North Jersey strip mall in July 2015 and worked him over with a slapjack — leaving the hapless entrepreneur battered and scarred, court documents said.

Legal experts told The Post it probably won’t be hard for federal prosecutors to secure a new indictment — but the delay might hurt their case in other ways, especially when it comes to the witness testimony they’ll need for a second grand jury presentation.

“Witnesses become unavailable, they move, they retire — and if they’re an elderly person, they may have issues with their memory anyway,” Laura Sutnick, a New Jersey criminal defense attorney and former Brooklyn prosecutor, told The Post in a recent interview.

“As you remove yourself from a situation, you remember less and less detail,” she continued. “And what makes a criminal case strong is when witnesses can give details, because details have the ring of truth.”

It also may give defense attorneys the opportunity to tease out inconsistencies in the stories the witnesses present — people often describe events differently the second time around, she added.

“That can affect the strength of the government’s case as well,” Sutnick said.

Perna pleaded to committing a violent crime in aid of racketeering activity and was sent to the slammer for nearly three years in June 2021. He was released last August.

Manzo has been charged with committing a violent crime in aid of racketeering, conspiracy, and falsifying and concealing records related to a federal investigation.

But even as remains free on bail, he’s lived beneath the looming specter of the federal case — as well as pending state charges in Monmouth County that claim he and another man broke into Dave and Dina’s home in Holmdel, New Jersey, and beat them with bats before robbing them in May 2017.

The next hearing in that case is April 29, state prosecutors told The Post.

Manzo had married Dina in an over-the-top 2005 wedding chronicled on the VH1 reality series “My Big Fabulous Wedding.”

But they split in 2012 over his alleged infidelity, “Real Housewives of New Jersey” star Kim DePaola told The Post in 2020 — though the couple didn’t officially divorce until 2016.

This article was originally posted here

A Catholic priest in Italy was handed a poisoned chalice — and narrowly avoided drinking it — while celebrating Mass after he spoke out against the Mafia in his small town.

The Rev. Felice Palamara — who is known for bravely denouncing organized crime — noticed the smell of bleach coming from the containers of water and wine during a Mass on Saturday in Cessaniti in the southern region of Calabria, where the powerful ‘Ndrangheta crime network originated.

Palamara suspected something was wrong and immediately suspended the service and called the Italian national police, the Carabinieri.

The police later determined Palamara’s cruets of water and wine had been laced with bleach.

The priest believes the attempt to poison him was ‘Ndrangheta’s retaliation for his denunciation of the group.

“I’m sure that this act of intimidation has nothing to do with my parishioners because I have been here for 10 years and I have always had good relations with the people of the parish,” Palamara told the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

“We don’t allow anyone to do harm to the parish. Nobody can stop a town that deserves redemption and that wants to grow,” he added.

The ‘Ndrangheta, believed to be the world’s richest organized crime group, has made tens of billions of dollars from trafficking cocaine over several decades, and recently has been able to expand its reach across Europe as the Sicilian Mafia lost its influence.

Palamara has been the target of numerous death threats. His car has also been vandalized twice in recent months, he told local media.

The priest, who now has a police escort, wrote on social media: “My revenge is called love, my shield forgiveness, my armor mercy. I will not dwell on obstacles, nor will I be frightened by the darkness.”

Other priests in the town have also been threatened, including the Rev. Francesco Pontoriero, who has received death threats and found a dead cat on the hood of his car.

In August last year, the local town council was dissolved over concerns the Mafia had infiltrated its ranks, a common measure taken especially in Italy’s south, where Mafia influence has held strong.

With Post wires

This article was originally posted here