Dapper daughter Victoria Gotti stands to lose her multimillion-dollar mansion — after cops busted her loose-lipped husband on racketeering charges in an elaborate sting operation.
Reputed wiseguy Carmine Agnello was arrested yesterday morning outside the palatial white-columned home in Old Westbury, L.I., and held on $10 million bail.
Queens prosecutors have frozen the estate, Agnello’s $30-million-a-year scrap-metal business and any other assets and are seeking to seize them under criminal forfeiture laws.
When Victoria went to a Pathmark yesterday, cops followed her and surrounded an ATM in the store so she couldn’t withdraw money from the family accounts, a source said.
“She’s devastated,” said a source close to Victoria, a best-selling novelist and only daughter of jailed Gambino crime-family boss John Gotti.
Her husband’s arrest capped an 18-month probe by undercover cops who set up a bogus scrap-metal business to catch low-level car thieves — and hooked the big fish.
Agnello, 40, was caught on tape threatening his rivals unless they caved in to his demands — and instructing a henchman how to make a Molotov cocktail to firebomb the upstart enterprise, investigators said.
“It’s a saga worthy of any episode of ‘The Sopranos,'” Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said, referring to the hit cable-TV show about a dysfunctional mob family.
It began when the NYPD auto-crimes division opened a business called Stadium Scrap in Flushing, Queens, to investigate chop-shop operations in the area.
The undercover cops were amazed when Agnello — whose company New York Shredding handles 80 percent of the scrap-yard crushing in the area — walked in one day.
“You’re doing business with me,” he allegedly told them, demanding they sell the scrap to his company.
The confrontation and later encounters were caught on tape because the NYPD operation was wired with high-tech video and sound recorders.
The cops also taped Agnello when they visited his office, a cigar bar outfitted with barber chairs. One of Agnello’s cohorts, who agreed to rat on him after being nabbed by cops, also wore a wire.
Prosecutors say Agnello’s crew firebombed a truck and a trailer at Stadium Scrap in June. The auto-shop cops then agreed to do business with Agnello, who later described for them how he ran the whole operation, investigators said.
“Because of these efforts, one of the most elusive figures in organized crime has been brought to justice,” said Police Commissioner Howard Safir, who promoted the two detectives and two officers yesterday.
Agnello was indicted on charges of enterprise corruption, arson, coercion and conspiracy — along with pals Joseph “Jumbo” Berger, Mark Lomonaco and Steven Scala. The charges carry a maximum of 25 years.
Judge Joseph Grosso set bail at $10 million — and Agnello can’t use his house or business to post the bond.
His lawyer, Marvyn Kornberg, called the arrest and high bail “a publicity stunt.”
“On numerous occasions the DA has charged Carmine Agnello with crimes, sought exorbitant bail and subsequently failed to convict him,” he said. “I expect the same will happen in this case.”
Victoria Gotti’s lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, had no comment.