In a scene straight out of “The Godfather: Part II,” a Mafia rat on the witness stand yesterday watched his brother walk into a Brooklyn courtroom — and sit with the family of the mobster he was testifying against.
And the brother who showed up — in a suspected life-imitating-art bid to get his sibling to clam up — even had the same name and background as the one in that Oscar-winning Mafia film: “Vincenzo” from Sicily.
In the 1974 movie, capo Frank “Frankie Five Angels” Pentangeli suddenly stops singing to a US Senate committee investigating the Mafia after seeing his brother, Vincenzo Pentangeli, walk into the hearing room with Corleone crime- clan boss Michael Corleone.
But real-life capo-turned-canary Dino “Big Dino” Calabro kept on chirping against alleged Colombo-family acting boss Thomas “Tommy Shots” Gioeli after Vincenzo “Cenzo” Calabro walked into Brooklyn federal court and sat right behind Gioeli’s family yesterday afternoon.
“It’s quite obvious it was a deliberate attempt to rattle the witness,” a source said about the sensational sibling stare-down. “But it doesn’t appear to have worked.”
Still, a member of Gioeli’s entourage conspicuously said, “Thank you for coming” to Cenzo Calabro as he left court.
Dino Calabro, 45, was in his third day of testifying against Gioeli, who is charged — along with Calabro’s cousin Dino “Little Dino” Saracino — of multiple murder and racketeering charges.
On Tuesday, Calabro told jurors that he and Saracino killed NYPD cop Ralph Dols in 1997 outside his Sheepshead Bay home on the orders of Gioeli — whose own superior, Joel “Joe Waverly” Cacace, was infuriated that the police officer had married Cacace’s ex-wife.
During Calabro’s cross-examination yesterday by Gioeli’s lawyer, Adam Perlmutter, Cenzo Calabro stole the show when he strolled into court and sat down on the right side of the gallery, amid Gioeli’s relatives and well-wishers.
Perlmutter then asked Big Dino if his brother was in the audience. The turncoat said he was, and Cenzo, at Perlmutter’s request, stood up to be identified.
Perlmutter suggested Big Dino considered his brother to be “a scumbag” because Cenzo allegedly stole $65,000 from Big Dino’s hidden cash stash years ago.
Big Dino adamantly denied that.
Sources said Cenzo had been a Colombo-family associate with Big Dino, and suspect he remains connected to the crime clan.