Star-Ledger Staff

Louis Auricchio walked out of a federal penitentiary in Virginia yesterday morning. By evening, he was behind bars in New Jersey to finish serving his sentence for the 1988 slaying of Genovese family crime boss John DiGilio.

Investigators from the state Di vision of Criminal Justice escorted the 48-year-old Auricchio from prison in Jonesville, where he had completed a federal sentence for conspiracy, to the Central Reception and Assignment Facility in Trenton

He will be held there briefly until he is assigned to a state prison to finish what is left of his 30-year sentence for aggravated manslaughter, which ran concur rently with his federal prison term. He is eligible for parole by 2009 but could remain in prison until 2024.

Auricchio, formerly of Holmdel, was once a rising star in the Genovese crime family and was briefly its heir apparent following the slay ing of DiGilio, whose body was found inside a bag in the Hacken sack River on May 26, 1988. He had been shot five times in the head.

Law enforcement officials theorized DiGilio had been executed on orders from higher-ups in his crime family, but the slaying went un solved until 1993, when Auricchio was indicted. By then, he was already in federal prison for tax eva sion.

In March 1994, Auricchio stood in a Toms River courtroom and coolly described how he sat behind DiGilio in a black Lincoln Continental, picked up a .38-caliber handgun stowed under the seat and fired it repeatedly.

"I shot him," Auricchio said.

The prosecutor, Deputy Attor ney General Charles Grinnell, later said, "I've never heard a colder recitation of facts. I've heard people order a sandwich with more emotion than this man."

Auricchio also admitted his involvement in two other mob slay ings and numerous acts of racketeering, including shakedowns of union leaders and several arsons.

Superior Court Judge Peter Giovine gave Auricchio the maxi mum sentence allowed by his plea bargain: 30 years with no parole for 15 years. Auricchio has been earning credit toward that sentence while serving a 12-year federal term imposed in 1994 for conspiring to kill DiGilio.

At both his state and federal sentencings, Auricchio made a point of stating he was not cooperating in prosecuting others involved in planning DiGilio's slaying, dumping his body and destroying the Lincoln. But others were indicted and one, former Bayonne police officer George Weingartner, committed suicide during his trial in 1998.

Except to say that Auricchio was flown to Philadelphia, the At torney General's Office released few details about his transfer. That was to safeguard the procedures used in moving inmates, according to Peter Aseltine, a spokesman for Attorney General Stuart Rabner.