MOB TURNCOAT GRAVANO ARRESTED ON DRUG CHARGES

PHOENIX (AP) -- Former Mafia hitman Salvatore "Sammy the Bull"
Gravano, the mob turncoat whose testimony helped put crime boss John
Gotti behind bars, was charged Thursday with operating a statewide
ecstasy ring, authorities said.

Gravano was arrested on one count of conspiracy to distribute
dangerous drugs, a felony carrying a 121/2-year prison sentence, said
Arizona Attorney General Janet Napolitano.

"His primary testimony against the mob doesn't give him a free ride to
facilitate drug dealing in Arizona," said Napolitano.

Authorities said Gravano bankrolled the ring and also headed its
operations.

Gravano's wife, Debra, and other family members were also charged with
being involved in the ring, which police said distributed 20,000 to
30,000 ecstasy pills a week in Phoenix and may have had links to other
states. Each pill sold for $20 to $30.

Ecstasy is a hybrid of the hallucinogen mescaline and the stimulant
amphetamine chemically known as MDMA.

It has been shown in previous studies to cause brain damage in animals
at doses similar to those used by humans.

Among 36 alleged ring members in custody Thursday were Debra Gravano;
Gravano's son, Gerard; his daughter, Karen; her husband, David
Seabrook; and Michael Papa, another alleged ring leader.

Napolitano said 25 additional suspects could be arrested as part of
the investigation that began in August 1999. Additional charges also
could be filed against Gravano and his associates, she said.

A judge set Gravano's bail at $5 million cash, Napolitano said. Papa's
bail was set at $1 million; bail for the others ranged from $250,000
to $100,000.

Papa had at one time worked for Gravano's construction company,
authorities said.

Authorities still aren't sure who was supplying the organization with
the drugs, which are produced in Europe, said Tom Raffanello, head of
the Drug Enforcement Administration's Phoenix office.

Gravano, a confessed serial hitman, ravaged the Mafia by defecting to
the government, making headlines when he helped convict Gotti and
dozens of other gangland cronies.

Authorities called him most important mob turncoat in U.S.
history.

His bombshell testimony, along with conversations secretly taped by
the FBI, finally put Gotti, the so-called "Teflon Don," behind bars
for life in 1992 after three previous acquittals.

Under his deal with prosecutors, Gravano admitted to 19 murders, but
served only five years for racketeering.

He then entered the federal witness protection program, but dropped
out in December 1997 saying he wanted to live normally, not always
looking over his shoulder for "some kid" hoping to "make a name for
himself by taking me out."

By 1999, the 54-year-old was making a new life in a Phoenix
suburb.

Neighbors of his wife, Debra, said they knew about the connection to
Sammy the Bull but didn't worry about it.

Kay Gianopulos, 71, who lives down the street from the Gravano house,
said, "We just decided to not spread the word who lived there. We felt
that they had a right to live their life."

Gravano, who was living under an assumed name, told The Arizona
Republic last summer that he didn't think he was in any real danger.

"I'm not running from the (expletive) Mafia," Gravano
said.

Bruce Cutler, attorney for jailed mob boss John Gotti, said Thursday
that he planned to call Gotti at the federal prison in Marion, Ill.,
to pass on word of Gravano's arrest - hopefully in the next week.

"You can't change the nature of a man ... He is a reprobate, a craven
liar," Cutler said at a news conference in New York.

Attorney Ron Kuby, who represents the families of Gravano's 19 murder
victims in an ongoing civil suit, said Gravano's insistence that he
was repudiating his criminal ways had been a scam.

"I wonder how the government officials who cozied up to this mobster
must feel. First they allow him to get away with 19 murders, then they
turn him loose to deal poison to the unsuspecting people of Arizona.
There ought to be a couple of FBI agents, U.S. attorneys and one
federal judge named as accomplices," Kuby said.