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BIG MIKE SQUICCIARINI: ‘Sopranos’ Deadfella Linked To Mob Hit

Talk about typecasting.

A real-life mobster’s appearances on “The Sopranos” playing — what else? — a mob goon spurred witnesses to link him to a 1992 Brooklyn slaying, according to court papers.

But Michael (Big Mike) Squicciarini died last year at age 46 — of natural causes — and was never charged in the alleged off-screen role, authorities said.

Big Mike — who earned his nickname with his hulking 6-foot-5, 305-pound build — is believed to be the first cast member of the hit HBO show to be implicated in a real-life murder.

The allegations were contained in court papers filed last week by federal prosecutors going after a Brooklyn crew of the DeCavalcante mob — the New Jersey crime family on which “The Sopranos” is based.

In the court papers, Manhattan Assistant U.S. Attorney John Hillebrecht described how DeCavalcante crew members lured drug dealer Ralph Hernandez to a Carroll Gardens social club run by Joseph (Joe Pitts) Conigliaro, a DeCavalcante associate who had been paralyzed in a shootout.

The crew locked the door on Hernandez, and Conigliaro, from his wheelchair, shot him once in the forehead and three times behind the left ear, the papers state.

Two of the crew members wrapped the body in carpet and dumped it in a nearby lot, then returned to clean blood from the tiled floor, according to the papers. This effort earned one crew member the nickname The Cleaner.

Conigliaro was whacked by his own crew in 1999.

While not offering details, the papers allege that Squicciarini was “involved in this murder in various ways.”

He was linked to the crime by witnesses who knew only his nickname — but remembered he had appeared on “The Sopranos.”

They identified Squicciarini — who played a mob enforcer on two episodes in the show’s second season — when shown a video, sources familiar with the investigation said.

Other cast members have had their problems with authority.

Tony Sirico, who plays Paulie Walnuts, had brushes with the law in the 1970s, and Robert Iler, who plays Tony Soprano's teenage son, plea-bargained a felony robbery charge down to misdemeanor petty larceny in April.

In Squicciarini’s case, the distinction between fiction and fact was sometimes difficult to discern.

A hulking guy from Queens with "Italian Stallion" tattooed on his left pec and a naked woman on his right pec, Squicciarini appeared in several mob movies and shows, including 1999’s — “Mickey Blue Eyes” with Hugh Grant.

In a 1999 National Public Radio interview, Squicciarini admitted he was well suited to play a gangster: “In the public’s eye, they're these big, scary guys with the dark hair and the dark eyes — you know, like me.”

In 1982, Squicciarini began serving a seven-year sentence for a conviction on aggravated assault charges in Monmouth County, N.J. — the heart of “Sopranos” territory. He spent five years behind bars.

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