But numbers don’t begin to tell the story of the cultural impact of the movie. Every wiseguy and FBI agent, it seems,  knows the movie by heart and can recite lines and scenes — especially if they bear any resemblance to real life events. Granted, movies like “Goodfellas” and “Donnie Brasco” provided a more accurate depiction of mob life — the scene in Brasco where brokesters are busting into parking meters for quarters was called to mind by certain of the lesser capers pulled by Greg DePalma’s crew in the last major mob takedown in our area.

But “The Godfather” and its sequel remain the gold standard for mob movies. As a friend of mine (not a friend of ours) says about the third Godfather flick, “It didn’t happen.”

Speaking of DePalma and mob movies, Benicio Del Toro has signed on to play former FBI agent Joaquin “Big Jack” Garcia in the movie version of his autobiographical tome “Making Jack Falcone,” which recounts how Garcia infiltrated and then took down DePalma’s crew and the entire hierarchy of the Gambino Crime Family by posing as a Florida jewel thief, Jack Falcone. I spoke with Jack recently and he said he’d like to see Anthony Hopkins play DePalma.

Anyway, tanti auguri di buon compleanno to “The Godfather.”

“In light of the circumstances, the Government has decided not to proceed with the prosecution against John A. Gotti,” Bharara said in the statement.

Bharara’s office submitted what is called a “nolle prosequi” order for approval by U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel, who oversaw the last Gotti trial where the son of former Gambino Crime Family boss John “Dapper Don” Gotti walked out of court a free man following Castel’s declaration of a mistrial on Dec. 2 when the jury said it could not reach a verdict. “Nolle prosequi” is a legal term derived from the Latin that basically means the prosecution will not continue.

The feds do have a conviction of Gotti stemming from a 1998 case where he and now-deceased Gambino capo Greg DePalma of Scarsdale were charged with extorting the notorious – or famous depending on your viewpoint – Manhattan strip club Scores. It was while he was in prison on that conviction that Gotti said he quit the mob. Federal prosecutors and the FBI disagreed and tried to prove it four times after Gotti was released from prison.

Sandy Annabi (pictured left), Anthony Mangone, and Zehy Jereis have a 2:15 conference scheduled in McMahon’s Manhattan courtroom Friday afternoon. The appearance is in Manhattan because McMahon is assigned to the federal courthouse at 500 Pearl St. But she has been taking on cases based at the White Plains courthouse due to a backlog created by the deaths of judges Charles Brieant and Wiliam Conner.

U.S. District Judge Cathy Seibel was appointed to replace Brieant. But she is limited in the number of criminal cases she can handle because of her previous gig as a high-ranking member of the U.S. Attorney’s office. Seibel was the number two person in the U.S. Attorney’s office, serving as then-U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia’s chief deputy. Seibel cannot oversee cases that started as investigations while she was still in the U.S. attorney’s office. The Yonkers case began in March 2007, more than a year before Seibel was nominated to the federal bench.

There’s no indication that the Yonkers case will be moved to Manhattan. McMahon sits in the White Plains courthouse one Friday a month, and future court appearances will probably be timed to that schedule. McMahon also has the high-profile terrorism case involving four Newburgh men charged with trying to blow up synagogues in the Bronx. That case has remained in the White Plains courthouse.

Joanne Herdick divorced Groezinger a few years ago, taking her daughter Danielle away, saying she feared for the girl’s safety around Groezinger, who served as counsel to state Sen. Serphin Maltese for two decades. Herdick first had suspicions about her husband’s online activity as far back as 2002. She put tracking software on the family computer and called state police, who investigated but were unable to determine if what Groezinger had downloaded was child pornography.

Eventually, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested a man in California on child porn charges. What they found on his computer led them to Groezinger – he had been engaging in explicit online chats with the California man. The feds found 42 images of child porn on Groezinger’s laptop and a thumb drive.

Even though Herdick’s original assertions weren’t borne out by the state investigation, U.S. District Judge Stephen C. Robinson  said he thought Herdick had it figured out years before anyone else. “I find it impossible to believe that the wife made it up,” he said.

Herdick’s email had the subject line: “Wonderful News!” Then she wrote, “Hello! It’s finally come to an end! Justice was served and my daughter and I couldn’t be happier.”

White Plains lawyer Theodore Green had requested the hearing for his client David Williams to determine if officials at the Westchester County Jail were restricting Williams from properly assisting in his defense by holding him in 23-hour lockdown away from the general population.

But Green filed a letter to U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon that said he had met with the warden and the situation has been straightened out. Williams has been moved back into general population and has the same law library access as two of his co-defendants (Onta Williams and James Cromitie) who are also being held at the jail in Valhalla. The fourth defendant in the case, Laguerre Payen, is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan.

The next court appearance for the four accused men will be April 30.

Fernando Bermudez had a 27-month federal sentence waiting at the end of the 23-year state sentence he received for his conviction of second-degree murder in connection to a shooting near a Manhattan club in 1991.

But a state judge in Manhattan overturned the murder conviction last week, saying one witness lied and others were influenced into pointing the finger at Bermudez, now 40. Not only did the judge toss the conviction – he threw out the charges, saying Bermudez was innocent of the shooting.

Bermudez pleaded guilty in the drug case after he had been charged in the killing. The drug charges stemmed from an arrest by agents from the DEA’s Westchester County Task Force on Feb. 6, 1991, at the Cross County Shopping Center in Yonkers.

Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas ordered Bermudez freed on bail until June, 30, 2010, to give his lawyers time to  try and convince the federal Bureau of Prisons that Bermudez has long since served the 27 months in prison as part of the 18 years he wrongly served.

Read the Associated Press account of  the Bermudez case here.

“We’re honored and proud that the Attorney General is sending the case to the Southern District of New York and we’ve answered that call,” Bharara said. “And our job is to make the best criminal case that we can and that’s what we do best and that’s what we’re going to do.”

And once again, the feds’ have charged a Westchester man in connection with the alleged schemes.

Michael Kimelman, 38,  of Larchmont, who founded Incremental Capital, was accused of  securities fraud and conspiracy in one of  eight criminal complaints and felony information documents that were announced today. Kimelman was arrested by FBI agents at his home this morning.

The first shoe in the case dropped Oct. 16 when Bharara  announced the arrests of  six executives in connection with a $20 million insider trading case. Among those charged was Mark Kurland of Mount Kisco. The former president of a hedge fund company was charged along with one of the wealthiest men in the world, Raj Rajaratnam and now-former IBM executive Robert Moffat in the case.

This latest case was built on informants, wiretaps and intercepted phone calls — the staples of drug, organized crime, and anti-terrorism cases. It used to be that white collar cases were painstakingly built on reams of documents. That looks like it’s changing under Bharara as the feds appear willing to employ more aggressive tactics in rooting out white collar corruption.

Read the release from Bharara’s office here.

Just ask the 53 Bronx residents charged in six sweeping federal indictments aimed at the crack and heroin trade in two Bronx housing projects. Some 450 federal agents and New York City cops descended upon the Morrisania section of the Bronx this morning to corral more than three dozen of the accused. And the feds used all the weapons at their disposal in the investigation —wiretaps, informants, undercover officers — to build the case that resulted in the execution of 22 search warrants this morning and the seizure of $18,000, four guns, and 1000 bags of heroin.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara called a press conference to announce the arrests, the third such news event since he was sworn in last month. The first two were connected to white collar cases.  Read the release issued by Bharara’s office here.