NEW YORK – The Dopey Don went down.

A jury found Peter Gotti guilty Wednesday of ordering the failed revenge hit on mob snitch Salvatore “Sammy Bull” Gravano – meaning the Gambino crime boss is likely to spend the rest of his days behind bars.

“What do you expect?” the former garbageman said with a shrug to his son, Peter Jr., the lone family member to attend the six-week trial in Manhattan Federal Court.

Gotti, 65, also was convicted of overseeing the Gambino family’s construction industry shakedowns – a racket that meant millions in illegal earnings for the once-powerful crime clan.

For Gotti, it is the second conviction in less than a year – and effectively ends his rocky reign as successor to his late brother, John Gotti, who was put away by Gravano’s testimony.

“We’re stunned,” said Peter Gotti’s lawyer, Joseph Bondy, promising to appeal. “It’s devastation.”

Peter Gotti, who is already doing 9½ years on a racketeering rap, could face an additional 50 years behind bars if jurors decide after legal arguments Thursday that he played a leadership role in the mob family and made substantial profits from extortion.

It has been a tough year for Peter Gotti, who sued his wife of 42 years for divorce. His mistress killed herself after going public with their affair.

Peter Gotti’s co-defendant, Gambino soldier Thomas (Huck) Carbonaro, 56, also was convicted on a racketeering conspiracy charge, including two murders, but was acquitted on several lesser charges. He faces life in prison.

Carbonaro was part of the two-man hit team Peter Gotti sent to Arizona in 1999 with orders to kill Gravano after he taunted his former mob pals in a newspaper article.

Peter Gotti’s downfall came as he barely emerged from the shadows to take control of the family amid his brother’s 2002 death and a conviction that put his nephew John (Junior) Gotti in prison.

Bondy denied Peter Gotti was the Gambino leader – and noted other mobsters referred to Peter Gotti as “a dope” behind his back.

But a parade of mob defectors put Peter Gotti squarely in the boss’ seat – taking part in a rare sitdown with the leadership of the five families at a Queens restaurant in May 2001.

His links to the failed hit on Gravano were supplied by mob turncoats like Michael (Mikey Scars) DiLeonardo. A one-time family capo, DiLeonardo recalled Peter Gotti complaining to him that he laid out $70,000 of family money for the hit and didn’t have a body to show for it.

Frank (Frankie Fapp) Fappiano, the mob’s point man in construction extortion, testified that at least $5 million in construction cash flowed to the family over two decades, which he regularly delivered to Peter Gotti.

Even the words of Peter Gotti’s dead brother were used by prosecutors. In bugged conversations at his Little Italy hangout in 1989, John Gotti said he had his brother pick up $10,000 a month from a New Jersey construction company owner and Gambino associate.

“My own (expletive) brother, he comes over to me,” John Gotti said in 1989. “He’s the acting capodecina (mob captain).”

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