Joseph Vollaro has been "relocated" to a secret hideaway, under the protective eye of law-enforcement officers, sources said yesterday. While Vollaro is not officially in the federal witness-protection program, which sets up informants with false identities away from their homes to keep them safe, he's being hidden so he won't get whacked by the furious Gambino mobsters he fingered, one law-enforcement source said. But another source told The Post the tough-as-nails turncoat brazenly emerged over the weekend at one of his favorite haunts. Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa said his radio show's executive producer, Frank Morano, spotted Vollaro in a Staten Island sushi restaurant Saturday night. The eatery, Mizu, is two doors down from a restaurant co-owned by Vollaro's pregnant wife, Trisha, who refused to go into hiding with her hubby. Morano yesterday told The Post he and another patron immediately recognized the volatile Vollaro, whom Morano knows from the local bars. "And then the bartender, who has seen him a lot more than I have, said, 'That's Joe, that's Trisha's husband,' " Morano said.
But the bartender Morano talked to, Bianca Dimitri, told The Post yesterday that she had not seen Vollaro in Mizu for two or three weeks and that Morano may have misinterpreted what she said. Morano declined to comment on Dimitri's claim.
A spokesman for the Brooklyn US Attorney's Office, which is prosecuting the Gambinos based on the rat's evidence, refused to comment on the possible sighting.
A law-enforcement source familiar with the case said Morano must have been mistaken.
Another Mizu employee who refused to give his name said a review of surveillance video at the eatery does not show Vollaro there Saturday. But the employee refused to let a Post reporter see the video.