A son of the most feared Mafia boss in New York, the mob prince who was convicted of using his old man’s clout to rule the docks from here to Miami, is a hell of a great guy – regardless of what the feds say about him.

That’s what the longshoreman’s union leader who was acquitted last week of racketeering charges, Harold Daggett, told the jury about Andrew Gigante, whom he met 30 years ago when they worked together on the New Jersey docks.

“I was Andrew’s best friend,” said Mr. Daggett, who earns $480,000 a year for his work as an executive with the International Longshoremen’s Association and the president of its most powerful local union, Local 1804-1 of North Bergen, N.J.

Mr. Daggett wasn’t the only person who thought highly of Gigante, son of the imprisoned Genovese boss, Vincent “Chin” Gigante.

“He was the most popular guy on the piers,” Mr. Daggett said.

For good reason: Each year, Mr. Daggett said, “Andrew threw a barbecue for his men and invited management. They came, all the people on the pier came … and he would pay for that out of his own pocket.”

Unlike other mob scions such as John A. “Junior” Gotti, Andrew Gigante was never inducted into the Mafia. Instead, he used his money and influence for much more than to maintain good working relations on the waterfront, Mr. Daggett claimed.

Gigante raised money for orphanages in Jersey City, Hoboken, and North Bergen and arranged for a toy company to match funds contributed by longshoremen and others. The donations produced “beautiful gifts, bicycles for the boys and carriages for the girls” at Christmas, Mr. Daggett said.

“It became a ritual every year,” he said. “They got a tractor-trailer, and on Christmas Eve me and him and a few men gave out all the gifts to the orphanages.”

One year, with prodding from the mayor of North Bergen and Mr. Daggett’s encouragement, Gigante hired a Santa Claus and a professional photographer and used an ILA hiring hall for a full-blown Christmas party for children with terminal cancer. “Andrew would pick them up and put them in Santa’s Claus’s lap to take a picture,” Mr. Daggett said.

“That’s the Andrew that we know,” he said, not the man who pleaded guilty to extortion and agreed to a plea bargain that cost him two years in prison and $2 million in funds he obtained through labor racketeering.

Mr. Daggett, 59, was so eager to sing Gigante’s praises that he kept at it even after his lawyer, George Daggett, had moved to another topic. The lawyer quickly reframed his question, enabling the ILA official to recall that on Thanksgiving, Gigante “would work in a soup kitchen for two or three hours with his uncle,” the Reverend Louis Gigante.

It’s unclear whether Gigante will resume his soup kitchen duty on Turkey Day next week – his lawyer did not respond to Gang Land’s call for comment – but he might. He was released from prison in July, and such work isn’t prohibited by the terms of his plea bargain, unless the soup kitchen happens to be on the waterfront. That’s off limits, according to his plea deal.

George Daggett – praised as the “World’s Greatest Trial Attorney” on a hand-painted sign placed outside his Sparta, N.J., office last week – also declined to comment.

Meanwhile, Brooklyn federal prosecutors are downplaying the impact the acquittal will have on a massive civil racketeering suit that seeks to oust ILA’s president, John Bowers, and other top executives among 31 listed ILA officers for alleged corrupt activities. In addition to Mr. Daggett, an ILA vice president, Arthur Coffey, and a mobster who disappeared during the trial, Larry Ricci, were acquitted of all charges.

Mr. Coffey’s lawyer, Gerald McMahon, said the “verdict puts a huge hole in the civil case” and might prevent the government from even seeking injunctive relief against the union or its officials before a trial, as it often does in a civil racketeering case.

Even the lower threshold of proof needed in civil cases – a preponderance of evidence as opposed to evidence beyond a reasonable doubt – will not help the feds, he said. “There was plenty of evidence of extortion and fraud in the case, but it was committed by the prosecution’s witnesses, not the defendants,” Mr. McMahon said.

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Chris Colombo, a wannabe actor who plays himself in a pretty funny show called “House Arrest” that airs Thanksgiving night on HBO, must subscribe to the “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never harm me” school of thought.

Why else would he graciously accept a Knucklehead Award bestowed on him by a Daily News editorial Tuesday even though the son of late Mafia boss Joe Colombo can’t quite figure out what his efforts on the small screen have to do with his father being gunned down at Columbus Circle 34 years ago, when Chris was 10.

Early this year, as he awaited trial on racketeering charges under modified “house arrest” conditions, Mr. Colombo jumped at the chance to star in a TV show HBO describes as a “docu-comedy based on reality.” The idea came from Chris Gambale, an old friend with some juice as an independent producer, who packaged it and sold it to HBO.

Try as Gang land might, Mr. Colombo wouldn’t bash the News for taking several shots at him in the editorial, or for stating that the feds were “moving pronto” to have his “freedom revoked” when – as its rival, the New York Post, noted that same day – Manhattan Federal Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald had already rejected the idea that the TV show was a violation of his bail conditions.

Two weeks ago, when Gang Land broke the “House Arrest” story, lawyer Jeremy Schneider noted that all his client’s “work” during the filming was done “within the restrictions of his curfew and the geographical limitations of his bail.”

Yesterday, Mr. Colombo said: “I’m gainfully employed, working with nice respectful people, and doing what I do best. I’m entertaining people. I humbly accept the Knucklehead Award.”

Editor’s note: Like most Americans, Gang Land intends to spend Thanksgiving Day with family and enjoy a traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Next week’s column will appear on Friday. This column and other news of organized crime will appear later today at www.ganglandnews.com.