NY- Prosecuters won a ruling yesterday that allows them to show a secret 1996 jailhouse video in which John (Dapper Don) Gotti talks to his son about “hurting” former Daily News mob columnist Jerry Capeci.

They want to use the tape to show what happens when the press crosses the famous mob family – not that Gotti and his son John A. (Junior) Gotti wanted to kill Capeci.

“It shows the Gottis’ preoccupation with the press,” said Manhattan federal prosecutor Victor Hou. “When they got bad press, they lashed out.”

Hou said Junior Gotti says to his old man on the tape that “the pen is mightier than the sword.”

The Dapper Don’s son is charged with masterminding the attack on Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa for badmouthing his father on the radio.

Mob turncoat Joseph (Little Joey) D’Angelo testified Wednesday that he picked Sliwa up in a stolen cab and that Gotti co-defendant Michael (Mikey Y) Yannotti popped out from underneath the dashboard and shot Sliwa.

The argument over the admissibility of the tape took place outside the presence of the jury.

Gotti lawyers said the tape had no relevance because the Sliwa incident was four years earlier.

“This is just a frustrated guy in prison complaining about the press,” said Gotti attorney Mark Fernich.

Capeci may have angered Gotti with “Gotti: Rise and Fall,” which came out in June 1996.

“Gotti has voiced displeasure with me in the past, but thank goodness he has never acted on his hyperbolic remarks,” said Capeci.