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Sunday, January 11, 2009

GOTTI HIT OF 'ACID': SON'S KILLER IN VAT

By KATI CORNELL

CARNEGLIAPart of "revenge squad."
CARNEGLIAPart of "revenge squad."

The man who accidentally ran over John Gotti's young son was allegedly dumped in a vat of acid by a twisted Gambino hit man.

Charles Carneglia, 62, who is awaiting trial for five Mafia murders, once boasted of his sick specialty in a tutorial for a turncoat would-be mobster, explaining "that acid was the best method to use to avoid detection," according to court papers filed yesterday.

The accused mob killer was allegedly part of a seven-man hit squad that targeted John Favara on July 28, 1980, in retaliation for killing the Mafia leader's 12-year-old son, Frank.

Favara, 51, a neighbor of the Gotti family in Howard Beach, Queens, made the fatal mistake of hitting Frank with his car when the boy darted into the street on a borrowed dirt bike.

As of last year, prosecutors believed Favara's remains were stuffed in a barrel of concrete and tossed off a Sheepshead Bay pier.

But Carneglia's love of acid and his use of it in Favara's case came to light thanks to new information from the cooperating witness, according to the documents filed in Brooklyn federal court.

The reputedly bloodthirsty mob killer - who sports long, scraggly hair and an unkempt beard - went so far as to keep vats of the caustic, flesh-eating liquid in his basement.

When it came time to clean house, Carneglia asked the turncoat for help in moving the acid, and "alluded to the fact that the barrels had been used in connection with disposing of a number of bodies," Assistant US Attorney Roger Burlingame wrote.

The turncoat told prosecutors he believed this expertise was "a key component of [Carneglia's] value to the Gambino family," the court papers say.

Body disposal was a studied art for Carneglia, who also told the turncoat about the latest page-turner he'd picked up - a book on dismemberment.

Carneglia was arrested in February 2008, along with more than 60 wiseguys, in one of the biggest roundups in mob history. All the other defendants have pleaded guilty, and his trial is set to begin next month.

kati.cornell@nypost.com

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