He's big and he's tough. And 10 years ago, when he ran with the Colombo family and was known as Johnny Capone, he demonstrated that he could slap people around, act like a wiseguy, and strut like the most infamous gangster of his generation, John Gotti.

Try as he might, however, John Compono  his real name  could never move up in the mob. Today, at 47, he faces 20 years in prison as a co-defendant of high-level Bonanno mobsters in a major racketeering indictment handed up two weeks ago. But he's still a lowly associate.

At least Compono is still alive. That might be the most amazing aspect of the intriguing saga of Johnny Capone, the ultimate wannabe wiseguy, who wanted so much to be known as a feared mob enforcer that he served as his own publicist.

The story begins in early 1997, when a then-Channel 4 TV newsman, John Miller, received a tip from an anonymous caller about a new, up-and-coming Colombo wiseguy named Compono  aka Johnny Capone. This Johnny Capone, the caller said, was the real deal, a tough mob enforcer who was flexing his muscles in Queens and Long Island.

Contacted by Gang Land, Mr. Miller, now assistant director of the FBI's Office of Public Affairs in Washington, recalled how he got onto the story. "A tipster said this bully who called himself Johnny Capone was going around acting like John Gotti Jr., beating up loan-shark victims, even when they made their payments."

The tipster refused to meet Mr. Miller, saying he feared he would be killed if he were spotted with the well-known TV reporter. But Mr. Miller said, "He gave me his beeper number and we worked out a way to contact each other. His code name was Steve."

Months later, Mr. Miller would deduce, and report, that incredible as it seemed, "Steve" was Compono. He wanted to enhance his tough-guy status and raise his mob stature, so he called Mr. Miller to show him threatening people and meeting with real wiseguys.

Sure enough, when Mr. Miller staked out a car dealer, his camera crew caught Compono, his hair perfectly coiffed, sucker-punching a car salesman immediately after the gangster, who was wearing a black leather jacket, had counted out his payment in full.

After knocking his unsuspecting victim back, Compono followed him menacingly, cocking his right hand like a gun, and thrusting his trigger finger at his backpedaling victim several times. The frightening footage, which lasts about six seconds, ends with Johnny Capone seen, but not heard, yelling at the retreating car salesman.

The next night, the camera crew videotaped Compono as he handed cash to a bookmaker, Tony Russo, and then acted out a virtual replay of his meeting with the car salesman. First he moved his hands in front of his chest as though counting money, then he punched the man and pointed his cocked trigger finger at him.

In another encounter, Mr. Miller managed to get audio, and Compono was heard threatening a contractor at a construction site: "Some day, you're gonna meet me here, and I'm not gonna say a fing word, and I'm gonna knock you through that fing wall."

Russo was just one of a string of gangsters with a supporting role in a series of Channel 4 classic newscasts starring Johnny Capone that were reviewed by Gang Land this week.

In a scene in front of a Queens social club, Compono is seen hugging and kissing mob assassin Vito Guzzo, who would be charged later that year with three murders and is now serving 36 years in prison. In another scene, Compono was caught in animated discussion outside another social club with family consiglièreRalph Lombardo.

When Mr. Miller stopped Compono in front of his Merrick, Long Island, home and asked about his mobster activities, the swashbuckling Johnny Capone pointed his finger at Mr. Miller and, in his best John Gotti pose, bellowed: "You better behave yourself."

But when Mr. Miller interviewed a loan-shark victim and learned about Compono's dual role as "Steve" and confronted him  in a mind-boggling blunder, he gave the same pager number to his victim and to Mr. Miller  a stonefaced Johnny Capone got behind the wheel of his white Caddy and drove off into the sunset.

As a former New York FBI boss, Jim Fox, told Mr. Miller, Compono's action in bringing "public attention" to himself and to other wiseguys was "pretty dangerous stuff. They're not going to like that." But no retribution was forthcoming.

Mr. Miller's reporting did not lead to any federal charges against Compono, but the Nassau County district attorney at the time, Denis Dillon, hit him with fraud charges for using a credit card that Guzzo gave him to purchase $3,477 in televisions and other big-ticket items. He later copped a plea bargain to forgery, made full restitution, and served five years' probation.

The investigative report also cost Compono his position as a private sanitation worker, as well as the health, welfare, and other fringe benefits that go along with being a member of Local 813 of the Teamsters Union.

Citing the Channel 4 broadcasts, the Teamsters Independent Review Board recommended on August 7, 1997, that Compono be bounced from Local 813 for associating with Lombardo and Russo. Five days later, the then-president of the Teamsters, Ron Carey, permanently barred him.

But Johnny Capone still had a few scenes left to play.

After laying low and avoiding retaliation from the Colombos for his bonehead moves, sources said Compono worked construction and gravitated to the Bonanno family, ultimately hooking up with soldier Michael "Mike the Butcher" Virtuoso, who owns a meat market in Ridgewood.

In the current indictment, Virtuoso, Compono, and associate Anthony "Nino" DiGiovanna are charged with three loan-sharking counts that accuse them of taking part in a loan-sharking conspiracy between 2002 and 2005, with Compono serving in his well-rehearsed role as loan collector.

Befitting the "outside the box" strategy he exhibited on videotape a decade ago, sources say Compono was overheard engaging in some double-dealing discussions with a loan-shark customer who was working with the FBI and wearing a wire.

"In one conversation," one source said, "he tells the witness, whose brother is a police officer, to tell the brother to round up a bunch of the guys and say it's part of an investigation, and then he won't have to pay his debt because the wiseguys'll all run like thieves."

During that same time frame, the source said, Compono was also tape-recorded telling Virtuoso that the loan-shark customer was having trouble making his payments and might become a deadbeat.

At Compono's February 6 bail hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Winston Chan and court-appointed lawyer Julie Clark worked out a home detention agreement that permits Compono to turn off his ankle bracelet monitor and leave his Wantaugh, Long Island, home to go to work, Ms. Clark told Gang Land.

What job? What type of work? "I don't recall," Ms. Clark said. "It's a legitimate job. I don't recall what type of work he does. But it's a legitimate job."

Let's hope so. As Johnny Capone, he was clearly a flop.

This column and other news of organized crime will appear later today at ganglandnews.com.