Pubdate: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 Source: Bergen Record (NJ) Copyright: 2001 Bergen Record Corp. Contact: 150 River St., Hackensack, NJ 07601 Fax: (201) 646-4749 Feedback: http://www.bergen.com/cgi-bin/feedback Website: http://www.bergen.com/ MOB INFORMANT CHARGED WITH DRUG DEALING NEW YORK (AP) -- Returning to the Brooklyn courthouse where he gained fame as a turncoat mobster, Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano was accused Thursday of being a common drug dealer. Gravano -- looking solemn and pale -- 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 Jan. 26. Outside court, defense attorney Lynne Stewart said her Brooklyn-born client told her he is 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 Monday to conspiracy charges carrying a possible 20-year prison term. Zarger -- once caught on tape boasting that he wanted to "whack" Gravano -- 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, in which prosecutors won convictions against the likes of Gambino boss John Gotti and Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, head of the Genovese family. It also was a reminder of the mob's descent into a drug trade it had once considered beneath it. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D