A Gambino mobster-turned-FBI informant testified yesterday that he felt duty-bound to join the crime family’s wiseguys during their sojourns to strip joints and massage parlors — because opting out would have blown his cover and jeopardized his safety.
“Being a guy and being in that life . . . you know, that’s what we like to do. That’s how we have fun. We go out, and we go to strip clubs,” the former Mafioso, Howard Santos, told jurors at a mob murder trial in Brooklyn federal court.
“I’m not saying that I didn’t want to do it because, you know, I didn’t really have a hard time . . . deciding to,” he admitted.
Santos said his motivation for one these outings was helping the feds collect information about a Gambino hit.
“This [mob] associate, Todd LaBarca, was pretty persistent on me and him going to get a massage. And at the time, I was trying to get information from him about a murder,” he said.
Santos feared that if he didn’t accept and strip down, the mobster would have suspected he was wearing a hidden recorder.
“I thought – maybe because you have to undress in front of each other – maybe he was trying to see if I had a ‘wire’ on,” Santos said.
“You know, when you have a recording device on you, sometimes you do get a little paranoid. And I thought if I didn’t do it, it definitely would have raised an eyebrow,” Santos said.
His dilemma mirrored a scene in HBO’s “The Sopranos” when Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero – who later turned out to be a rat – was urged by mob soldier Paulie Walnuts to shed his clothes at a Turkish bath, in a ploy to see if he was wired up.
Santos said he consulted his FBI handler, who gave him the green light – if refusing would have compromised his safety.
Eventually he went with LaBarca to get the massage.
The junket may have paid off. Last year LaBarca pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit a mob murder and was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
Santos, now in the witness-protection program, was testifying at the murder and racketeering trial of Bartolomeo Vernace, a Gambino capo and ruling panel member accused of helping to kill two men over a spilled drink in 1981.
mmaddux@nypost.com