Conspiracy case sends Prisco to sideline

The FBI agents knocked on Angelo Prisco's door around 6 a.m. yesterday, rousting the silver- haired reputed mobster from bed.

Not usually one for dapper suits, Prisco climbed into baggy blue pants, a black zippered sweat jacket and white sneakers without socks. He put a New York baseball cap on his head and oversized, tinted sunglasses on his face.

On the ride to Newark, he made cordial small talk with agents.

It's been three years since Prisco, alleged to be a ranking member of the Genovese crime family, last made headlines, then in an atypical way. He walked free on parole a third of the way into a 12-year prison term, allegedly thanks to a phone call by a key aide to then-Gov. James E. McGreevey.

He returned to jail yesterday under more traditional circumstances. Federal prosecutors said Prisco conspired with John Cappelli, a New York contractor, and Michael Visconti, another reputed mob associate, to muscle a Brooklyn electrician who had outbid Cappelli to light a street festival.

The charges were less notable for their details than for what they represent: an attempt to stifle a mobster's return to power in New Jersey's dominant crime family.

Prisco, 66, was to be free within days from state and federal oversight. It would have been the first time in more than a decade that he did not have to answer to a parole or probation officer.

The timing of his impending freedom appeared to be fortuitous, coming just months after the death of reputed family boss Vincent "The Chin" Gigante and the arrests of dozens of soldiers and associates in New York and New Jersey.

Prisco began preparing for his freedom last week, investigators said, when he and his wife moved from Toms River to a new riverfront condominium in the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx.

Though originally from New York, Prisco helped burnish his organized crime reputation in New Jersey. A one-time enforcer, he rose to captain and allegedly took control of the Genovese labor, gambling and extortion rackets in North Jersey in the late 1980s.