A bragging Bonnano crime family soldier nicknamed “Bazoo” kept demanding payments from a loansharking victim even after he’d been convicted of extorting the man — and forced the debtor to strip naked during a meeting last year, the feds allege. John Ragano, 62, who’s serving a nearly five-year sentence for his role in a union shakedown scheme, is set to go to trial in Brooklyn Federal Court on extortion and other charges, with jury selection starting Monday. Ragano, who also goes by the nickname “Maniac,” didn’t let his looming federal sentence stop him from pressuring his loan shark victim into paying off a $150,000 debt. Court filings identify the victim as a co-defendant in the union shakedown indictment who went into the marijuana trafficking business with Ragano. John “Bazoo” Ragano, left, is pictured in federal custody leaving FBI headquarters in New York City in 2013. (Joe Marino / New York Daily News) On July 5, 2023, five days before he surrendered to prison, Ragano met with the man and — worried he was wearing a wire — demanded he disrobe, according to the feds. “OK, well take off your f—ing s— right now, my man. Take off your f—ing pants right now, lemme see, I want to see,” he’s accused of saying. The man did as he was told, but he still managed to record the meeting — which took place at Ragano’s workplace, federal court filings allege. As the victim stood there, naked, two other men walked behind him, one carrying a crowbar, the other a tire iron, the feds allege. “You owe me my f—ing money, let’s see how you’re gonna do when I get out,” Ragano snarled, according to court documents. Ragano put the screws to the victim in 2022 and 2023 despite his “arrest, court supervision, guilty plea and sentence,” federal prosecutors allege, including one encounter in the Brooklyn federal courthouse where they both faced charges. In that November 2022 episode, Ragano asked the victim if he was still using the same cell phone number, then let him know that one of his pals would be collecting payments on his behalf, the feds allege. The man stopped making the payments, and that led to a text message from Ragano: “Happy New Year, Happy New Year, I haven’t heard from you. What’s the story? How you making out? Gimme a call. Bye.” Rattled, the man and his lawyer met with prosecutors, and in March 2023 agreed to start recording any conversations he had with Ragano and his debt-collecting pal, the feds said. The victim made a few $1,000 payments in the coming weeks, but in June, he told the pal that he wanted to meet Ragano to discuss an “issue” with the loan. That meeting took place July 5, and it got heated, with both the victim — who wanted to stop payments — and Ragano accusing the other of ratting to the feds. The victim stripped, and Ragano threatened to “slap the f—ing shit out of” him, then called him a “scumbag” and said, “I’ll see you when I get out, tough guy,” according to the feds. Ragano surrendered to prison July 10. The Bonnano mobster has a decadeslong criminal history and has served multiple prison stints — a fact he’s quick to brag about when he wants to come off as scary, the feds allege. In April 2021, he slashed the tires of a woman he thought might tell law enforcement officials what he was up to, then bragged in a recorded call, “If she calls the cops and tells them that? I’ll just tell them, ‘Hey, OK, put me in jail, what’s the problem?’ … What are they gonna give me, three years? I’ll do that with my c–k on the bars,” according to court filings by prosecutors. That June, he made several recorded comments to his marijuana trafficking co-conspirators, complaining that their business was taking too long. “I got guys that could go rob the farmer if I wanted to. I hang out with gangsters in f—ing jail, guys that did time, 25 years, that are hung up for money and would do anything,” he allegedly said. After his arrest in September 2021 in the union shakedown case, Ragano bragged that he’d been in a holding cell many times before, didn’t fear prison and used violence against other inmates who challenged him, the feds allege. “He added specifically that he never waited in line to use the prison’s communal microwave,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Devon Lash and Andrew Reich wrote in a July 26 motion. “Ragano then instructed those sitting on the cell’s bench to move and lay on the bench and took a nap.” New York Daily NewsThe cover of the New York Daily News after the Lufthansa heist on Dec. 12, 1978. Vincent Ragano was sentenced to more than four years after a 2014 racketeering conspiracy case involving the late Vincent Asaro, a Bonanno capo who was charged in the infamous 1978 Lufthansa heist at Kennedy Airport. In court filings, Ragano’s lawyer suggests that while his client may have been trying to collect on a loan, “which is not in and of itself unlawful,” he wasn’t resorting to threats, and his methods were not extortion. As for the July 5 meeting, the debtor provoked Ragano into responding with anger by cynically exploiting his reputation as “The Maniac” and accusing him of being a government cooperator, lawyer Joel Stein wrote in August. “After starting a fire, the government denies that it struck a match, ” he wrote. The judge overseeing the trial, Hector Gonzalez, won’t let the jury hear Ragano’s “Maniac” nickname, but is allowing prosecutors to mention many of his boasts. Ragano’s criminal history dates back to 1999, when he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for holding several workers at an Ozone Park accounting firm hostage during an armed robbery. fdsfsdfdsfJoe Marino / New York Daily NewsVincent Asaro leaves Brooklyn Federal Court in 2015. (Joe Marino / New York Daily News) He was also sentenced to more than four years after a 2014 racketeering conspiracy case involving the late Vincent Asaro, a Bonanno capo who was charged in the infamous 1978 Lufthansa heist at Kennedy Airport depicted in Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas.” In a bombshell 2015 verdict, Asaro was acquitted of taking part in the $6 million heist. Asaro died at age 88 in October 2023.