An accused Gambino hit man grew so disgusted with the Mafia after the feds jailed “Dapper Don” John Gotti that he retired from his life of crime, his pals testified yesterday.
A preppy college student who once did time for robbing a bank testified that Charles Carneglia, 62, took him under his wing to protect him while they were jailed together in New Jersey and repeatedly said “he was no longer part of the new mob.”
John White, 25, said Carneglia made the point while showing him articles in The Post about John “Junior” Gotti’s racketeering trials in Manhattan between 2005 and 2006.
“He would point at a picture of Junior and say ‘his father John Gotti . . . died a man. He died in prison. When he died, the whole mob died,’ ” White testified in Brooklyn federal court. “He would say ‘I’m not a part of this.’ ”
During this time, Junior had three racketeering trials end in hung juries after his lawyers argued that he’d left the mob.
Carneglia may hate the mob scion, but he’s adopted Junior’s defense strategy as he fights racketeering charges, including five murders.
Defense lawyers called a string of friends to the witness stand to testify that Carneglia was an exhausted, beaten-down drunk who left the mob as early as 2001.
Mark Gioia, 50, a convicted pot dealer from Howard Beach, Queens, said Carneglia once flew into a rage when a gang turned up at his favorite eatery and told him to shave his beard in accordance with mob rules.
“These motherf—ers think I’m going to shave my beard off!” Carneglia allegedly ranted. “No one’s going to tell me what to do. I’m not involved with them.”
Carneglia’s brother, jailed wiseguy John Carneglia, also turned his back and refused to use his wife’s house as bail for his sibling in May 2008, according to a prison tape played by defense lawyers.