Mr. Gotti's trial will be their first involving a significant Mafia investigation.

A New Commissioner On Friday, the Government, trying to dampen the political uproar, named a prosecutor noted for his aggressive work against terrorists, Domenico Sica, as the new high commissioner for Mafia investigations.

This view is supported by Giovanni Falcone, the soft-spoken 49-year-old prosecutor who has led most Mafia investigations in recent years.

Mafia investigations found that mobsters also used protection rackets and front companies to skim profits from garment deliveries and from the city's wholesale fish, meat and produce markets.

With stunning detail and brutal honesty, Cooley now tells the personal story behind the federal government's most successful Mafia investigation known as Operation Gambat.

"Organized crime in New York is becoming disorganized," says Ronald Goldstock, director of the state's Organized Crime Task Force, the agency that coordinates Mafia investigations.

The film is inspired by the story of Rita Atria, a key witness in a major Mafia investigation in Sicily.

After the dismaying result in the 1992 general election (29.7%) and two years of mounting scandals (which included several Mafia investigations which notably touched Andreotti), the party was disbanded in 1994.

Rita Atria (Partanna, September 4, 1974 - Rome, July 26, 1992) was a witness in a major Mafia investigation in Sicily, breaking the Omertà - code of silence.

The undercover Mafia investigation, however, produced separate Federal indictments against the three men, and in 1989 they were convicted on racketeering charges, including murder and attempted murder counts related to the attack on the detectives.