Backhoes seek 'remains' of Gotti's past in N.Y. lot

NEW YORK — It's no place to rest in peace: a vacant lot covered with reeds, slabs of concrete and trash.

But federal authorities believe the site in a remote section of Queens could be a graveyard for targets of hits ordered by John Gotti and other mobsters more than two decades ago.

Acting on a tip from an underworld informant, a team of FBI agents has begun digging for the remains of a half dozen or more victims. They include a man whose epitaph could read, "Made the mistake of killing the Dapper Don's son in a traffic accident." Another was nicknamed "Lucky."

No findings were reported during the first four days of digging last week. The job was expected to continue.

The suspected burial ground is on Ruby Street, just west of Kennedy Airport. Dilapidated homes, abandoned cars and other empty lots, some baited with rat poison, dot the marshy landscape.

On a recent day, traffic was almost nonexistent. Breezes off Jamaica Bay were steady.

The desolation suited the Gambino crime family.

"They picked it because it wasn't far from their stomping grounds and it was secluded," said Jerry Capeci, a columnist and expert on the Mafia. "But the key thing was that they thought it would never be looked at."

While no one was looking, Gotti's crew allegedly used the lot to make the bodies of traitors and enemies — whacked by both their crime family and others — disappear. Two of the dead are believed to be former captains of the Bonanno family, Dominick "Big Trin" Trinchera and Philip "Philly Lucky" Giaccone.

Trinchera, Giaccone and another Bonanno captain, Alphonse "Sonny Red" Indelicato, were shotgunned to death at a Brooklyn social club in 1981 amid an internal struggle for control of the family. Joseph Massino, who later became boss, was convicted earlier this year in the slayings based on the testimony of turncoat mobsters.

After the social club slaughter, the Gambinos agreed to help the Bonannos clean up the mess — though not well enough.

The body of Indelicato was discovered three weeks later by children who spotted his arm poking through the soil. A witness at the Massino trial recounted the mob's horror.

"We might have a problem," one soldier said at the time. "The body is rising."

Authorities retrieved Indelicato's body at the time and found no others.