Judge rejects ‘Godfather III’ excuse

Michael Corleone? Fuhgeddaboudit!

A Manhattan federal judge quoted from “The Godfather Part III” in court Thursday while balking at a reputed Genovese crime-family capo’s assertion that he returned to “the life’’ only because he couldn’t make ends meet on Social Security.

“This does not suggest, like Al Pacino in ‘The Godfather,’ ‘Just when I thought I was out . . . they pull me back in,’ ” Judge Richard Sullivan said, quoting one of the flick’s famous lines uttered by Pacino as mob boss Corleone.

The lawyer for convicted loanshark Eugene “Rooster’’ O’Nofrio had been arguing that his client, 76, was financially struggling when he was offered an opportunity to make some illicit dough by government cooperator John “Junior” Rubeo.

“He only got back in because Rubeo offered him a last chance,” O’Nofrio’s lawyer, Thomas Nooter, told the judge.

But Sullivan wasn’t buying it, citing evidence presented by the feds that O’Nofrio was widely considered an “acting” capo of the mob family who ran crews from Mulberry Street in Manhat- tan’s Little Italy and Springfield, Mass.

“You know . . . Springfield was given to me,” O’Nofrio said in one taped call.

In another call, O’Nofrio discussed how to intimidate a guy who owned him money on a $30,000 loan.

“What do I got to do with him?” O’Nofrio said. “Do you have to take his eyes out?”

Nooter insisted to the judge, “My client was playing a role. It was like he was living in the glory days when there was an active Genovese crime family.”

But after quoting from “The Godfather Part III,’’ Sullivan added, “This suggests Mr. O’Nofrio was in.”

Sullivan sentenced O’Nofrio to two years and six months in prison for loan-sharking and selling contraband cigarettes.