Mobster gunned down in Brooklyn

NEW YORK - A reputed mobster was shot four times yesterday in what cops said was a suspected gangland hit outside a Brooklyn social club run by his father, a notorious captain in the Gambino crime family.

Robert DeCicco, 56, was shot once in the head, twice in the arm, and once in the upper body at about 10:30 a.m. as he sat in his car near the club, two law-enforcement officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"It's not a confirmed mob hit, but it sure has the look of it," said a federal official.

Police said a light-colored Lincoln sped away from the location immediately after the shooting. No one had been arrested for the crime as of last night.

DeCicco, who lives on Staten Island, was treated at Lutheran Medical Center. His condition was not immediately known.

Authorities said the shooting took place outside a club owned by DeCicco's father, George DeCicco, in the Bath Beach section of Brooklyn.

Both the father and son were indicted in January along with 11 other alleged mobsters in Brooklyn on federal racketeering charges. The conspirators included nine members of the Luchese and Gambino families, and two associates of the Sicilian mafia.

The indictment includes allegations that the mobsters carried out a series of corrupt acts, including conspiring to smuggle gold bars worth millions of dollars from the Philippines into the United States.

In a recorded conversation about a cooperating witness' loansharking debt to George DeCicco, the longtime Gambino captain allegedly said, "I'll burn your eyes. Did you ever screw me? Do you want me to burn your eyes out?"

"George DiCicco has operated continuously for so long that his arrest today is like the end of Cal Ripken's consecutive-game streak," New York FBI chief Mark Mershon said at the time of the indictment in January. "The difference is that Ripken's streak ended when he voluntarily took himself out of the lineup."

The son is an associate - not a made man - and the 78-year-old father a captain in the Gambino crime family, according to the indictment.

Robert DeCicco's cousin Frank DeCicco was blown up outside a Bensonhurst social club on April 13, 1986, on orders from Genovese family head Vincent "The Chin" Gigante. Gigante was infuriated over the unsanctioned mob hit four months earlier against Gambino head "Big Paul" Castellano, a midtown Manhattan slaying orchestrated by John Gotti.

Gotti took over as Gambino boss after the slaying, with DeCicco becoming his underboss. The car bomb that killed DeCicco was intended for Gotti, who had changed plans and didn't go to the Veterans & Friends Social Club that Sunday morning. *