Anthony Spero, one of the last of the Old Guard Mafia kingpins, was convicted yesterday of ordering three murders during his 20 years as a high-ranking member of the Bonanno crime family.

Dressed in a worsted gray suit, Mr. Spero showed little emotion as the forewoman of the jury in Federal District Court in Brooklyn uttered ''guilty'' five times, one for each of the racketeering charges he faced.

His friends and family wept openly in the gallery, some hunched over in despair, others apparently racked in disbelief.

Mr. Spero, 72, faces a maximum penalty of life in prison. No sentencing date has been set.

The case against him was largely circumstantial. There were no wiretapped conversations of him commanding his troops to kill, and only 3 of the government's 10 cooperating witnesses said they had heard Mr. Spero speaking about the crimes he was charged with.

Nonetheless, the jury clearly believed the government's case, in which a handful of Mr. Spero's former underlings took the witness stand against him. In a series of gripping -- and sometimes humorous -- moments, they told how Mr. Spero had ordered the deaths of a petty thief who had once burglarized the home of his daughter, an ambitious member of his own crew who had plotted to kill him, and a fugitive mobster who was sacrificed to keep the peace with another Mafia family.

For more than two decades, Mr. Spero was a member of the Bonanno family of Brooklyn, rising at one point to the position of acting boss. A reserved man who spent his free time raising pigeons, he was a throwback to La Cosa Nostra's less spectacular days, an era before the excesses of a don like John J. Gotti, who once headed the Gambino squad.

The case against Mr. Spero essentially began five years ago when the New York Police Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration were investigating a crack cocaine ring in Bath Beach, Brooklyn, where Mr. Spero operated a social club that has since become the offices of a business that cremates pets. The drug investigation led to several arrests. The arrests led to the cooperation of several gangland turncoats. And by twists and turns, the turncoats led the authorities to Mr. Spero.

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Before Mr. Spero was led away yesterday, the federal marshals charged with taking him to jail let his loved ones into the well of the courtroom to say their goodbyes.

First came Diana Clemente, his eldest daughter, who embraced her father tearfully as he caressed her back. Mr. Spero's girlfriend came next, hugging him with tears in her eyes and taking the contents of his pockets: some cash and a set of keys that he could not take with him into custody.

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Outside the courtroom, Mr. Spero's brother, Sal, sat on a bench, weeping and shaking his head. ''I just can't believe it,'' he said over and over.

Gerald L. Shargel, Mr. Spero's lawyer, looked crestfallen as he spoke to reporters after the verdict. ''It makes me think that in cases like this, the presumption of innocence is just words on a page,'' he said.

The prosecutorial team, James Walden and Greg Andres of the United States attorney's office and Christopher Blank of the Brooklyn district attorney's office, reacted with solemn satisfaction, avoiding the eyes of Mr. Spero's supporters as the verdict was read. The prosecutors, too, spoke with reporters after the conviction.

''The jury saw the realistic fact,'' Mr. Walden said. ''It's difficult to catch people on wiretaps when the whole organization is designed to avoid just that -- Mr. Spero, in particular, being a master.''

The trial, which drew as spectators boxing trainers and an actor from ''The Sopranos,'' was filled with the tiny delicacies that only an old-fashioned mob trial can afford.

At one point, the jury heard that a would-be wise guy named William Galloway was called ''Willie Applehead'' because, as a witness put it, ''He had a big head and his face always got red.''

The jury also heard how a group of young gangsters who reported to Mr. Spero had once scraped together cash to buy a bottle of Champagne for Mr. Gotti when they saw him at a diner in their neighborhood.

They had to scrape together enough cash to afford a bottle of champagne for Gotti? Geez, how broke could they have been??

yet they were accused of having tons of money by the prosecutors and FBI. I think most mobsters with no legitimate businesses going are brokesters,

Technically speaking, they weren't mobsters, just little punk wannabes trying to earn their stripes. But I get what you're saying.

Even in the height of the mob's power back in the 1940s-1960s era, those who didn't have a legit business (or businesses) going for them were usually "hand to mouth" guys. The big difference was that years ago there were sooo many lucrative rackets going that as a 24/7 street guy who knew what he was doing, you could make a ton of money. But nowadays, with most rackets depleted or legit, the same opportunities don't exist to earn big.

Unless you wanna sell drugs, or are among the few who fall into a money-making white collar racket (which is rare), most guys are brokesters. And that's regardless of whether they're made or not.

Today, the "wiser" of the "wiseguy" set make sure to invest or open up legit business. Rackets almost become a side hustle after they operate the main business they have. The ones who wanna play tough guy in the streets like its 1955 end up behind the 8-ball.

They were pushing CRACK in the neighborhood big time.

They were def making money from that.

Jimmy Calandra spoke about him and Paul Gulino sending a bottle over to Sammy and John's table in one of his early podcasts. I don't remember hearing about the scraping the money together part.

You can thank Jimmy "The Rat" Calandra and his rat friends for Tony Spero's life sentence. Calandra's testimony swayed the jury towards conviction and an innocent man died in prison