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Gottis on Tape

Conversations used in challenge to son's lawyers

By Patricia Hurtado | Staff Writer

April 18, 1998

Federal prosecutors last night released excerpts of secretly recorded conversations that they say show how crime boss John Gotti barked out orders through his now-indicted son.

Prosecutors are seeking to use these new tapes to disqualify longtime Gotti defense lawyer Bruce Cutler from representing the convicted crime boss's son, John A. Gotti, known as Junior, who was indicted in January on federal racketeering charges. Prosecutors charge that the elder Gotti, who has been at the federal prison in Marion, Ill., since his 1992 conviction on murder and racketeering charges, is still boss of the Gambino crime family and that his son is a captain in the family because of his father. Cutler said he could not discuss the evidence in the case. "But I am aware of these tapes, and we are not running away from them. I have ultimate confidence in Judge [Barrington] Parker in seeing through this and to permit me to be the trial lawyer," he said. "As for the tapes, there is no crime in a son loving his father and talking to him about what is in the newspapers. There is no crime in a son visiting his father on a regular basis."

Another lawyer prosecutors are seeking to disqualify, Richard Rehbock, accused the government of a "gross mischaracterization" of his conversation with the younger Gotti and vowed to fight the disqualification.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Marjorie Miller and Carol Sipperly assert in court papers that the relationship between the Gottis is illustrated in a Dec. 20, 1997 conversation at Marion. The elder Gotti gives instructions to be passed to his lawyer, Cutler, and his brother, Peter, another reputed Gambino captain.

"You tell your Uncle Pete, tell Bruce, when you tell my brother that you don't want to be a campaign manager running a --- publicity campaign . . . we're not looking for no --- false publicity. We're lookin' for the truth to combat this thing," Gotti was quoted as saying in a videotape of a conversation with his son via a prison intercom. Prisoners are on notice that their conversations may be recorded.

Among the other examples prosecutors cited were: In a Nov. 23, 1996, videotaped visit to Marion, prosecutors charge, the younger Gotti reported to his father about recent searches at Scores, the Manhattan disco which prosecutors charge the son ran as a racketeering enterprise.

In a July, 1995, taped conversation, defendants in the case can be heard discussing how the younger Gotti directed them to hire Cutler and Rehbock for an unrelated case.

Prosecutors charged that this illustrates how Gotti's son had the power to select lawyers for subordinates and that Cutler and Rehbock were "house counsel" for the Gambinos.

The excerpts of the conversations were released in court papers as part of the prosecution's attempt to disqualify Cutler; Rehbock, who is representing Vincent Zollo on the new racketeering case; Robert Ellis, the lawyer for defendant Gregory DePalma, and Joseph Corozzo, Jr., who is representing Anthony Plomitallo.

In Gotti's 1992 case, prosecutors succeeded in getting Cutler and another lawyer, Gerald Shargel, knocked off the case using similiar arguments that they were "house counsel" for the Gambinos.

Prosecutors are not seeking to disqualify Shargel, who is representing the younger Gotti on this case.