The feds secretly recorded Gambino hit man Charles Carneglia acknowledging he fatally stabbed a mob associate outside a Queens diner, it was learned Monday.
Carneglia fessed up to the murder in a 1999 jailhouse visit with Gambino capo Gene Gotti, a transcript shows.
Documents filed in Brooklyn Federal Court say a listening bug was planted in the visiting room at the federal prison in Pennsylvania where Gotti was serving a 50-year sentence for heroin trafficking.
The victim, Michael Cotillo, was the nephew of a Gambino gangster whose crew was often at odds in the 1970s with John Gotti's faction, of which Carneglia was a member.
"Well, you stabbed somebody, Charles. You stabbed one of their guys," Gene Gotti said on the transcript.
Carneglia replied: "I know that. I know."
"And that's why they wanted to get you," Gene Gotti reminded him.
Gene Gotti was referring to revenge sought by Cotillo's friends and relatives after the Nov. 6, 1977, killing during a melee outside the Blue Fountain Diner on Cross Bay Blvd. in Howard Beach.
There were multiple sitdowns within the crime family to settle the beef, turncoat witness Anthony Ruggiano testified Monday at Carneglia's racketeering trial.
"They [Cotillo's faction] were looking to kill Charlie," Ruggiano said. "I said whatever you do, do it right because Charlie's no joke."
Despite the passage of 22 years, Carneglia still expressed concern on the tape that permission to whack him for Cotillo's murder had been granted. Gotti pointed out the threat was "squashed."
Carneglia is charged with killing five people, including Cotillo. Prosecutors plan to play the tape for the jury today.
Thanks to John Marzulli
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