GRAVANO FACES DRUG CHARGES IN BROOKLYN HOMECOMING

NEW YORK - Returning to the Brooklyn courthouse where he gained fame as a
turncoat mobster, Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano was accused today of
being a common drug dealer.

Gravano - looking solemn, pale and puffy - stood silently before Magistrate
Simon Chrein to face conspiracy charges linking him to a $100 million
ecstasy ring run by an Israeli living in Manhattan. Chrein ordered him held
without bail until a hearing on Jan. 26.

Outside court, defense attorney Lynne Stewart said her Brooklyn-born client
told her he's innocent. "There is an irony here," she added, asserting that
the case against the former government witness is built solely on the word
of cooperators.

"I guess we can say that nobody knows better than the government about how
to use confidential informants," she said.

Gravano, 55, was transported under tight security from Arizona, where he
was accused in February of heading the state's largest ecstasy syndicate.

Brooklyn prosecutors allege the former Gambino crime family underboss
bought 40,000 pills from the Israeli, Ilan Zarger, between late 1998 and
early last year. He also allegedly demanded a tariff on other designer-drug
sales on his turf, declaring, "I own Arizona."

Also charged in the Brooklyn case is Gravano's son, Gerard, 25, a
co-defendant in Arizona as well. Zarger pleaded guilty on Monday to
conspiracy charges carrying a possible 20-year prison term.

Zarger - once caught on tape boasting that he wanted to "whack" Gravano -
said his client has not agreed to testify for the government, his lawyer said.

Gravano's homecoming was a throwback to the glory days of high-drama mob
trials in Brooklyn, where prosecutors won convictions against the likes of
Gambino boss John Gotti and Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, head of the
Genovese family. It was also a reminder of the mob's descent into a drug
trade it had once considered beneath it.

In the same courthouse, Gravano testified against Gotti, his former boss,
in a 1992 trial that ended with the Dapper Don being sentenced to life in
prison. He also helped prosecutors convict several other mobsters,
including Gigante.

Gravano, who admitted killing 19 people, wound up with just a five-year
jail sentence because of his deal with the government. He also entered the
federal witness protection program in 1995, using the name Jimmy Moran.

But Gravano had dropped out of the program by early 1997 while living in
suburban Tempe, where authorities say he resumed his wiseguy ways.

"Here he is on the other side of the fence again," Stewart said.

Stewart said Gravano is being held in a maximum security block of the
Metropolitan Correctional Center, along with the alleged terrorists accused
of bombing U.S. embassies in Africa. If convicted, he would face a maximum
sentence of 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine.