Mr. Gotti's lawyer, Bruce Cutler, said the jury showed ''courage'' because ''it's not easy to say no to a Federal prosecutor.'' He said the jury had not been impressed with the testimony of ''paid Government informants who lie, who use drugs, who kill people.''
Full Answer
Reuters A federal informant claims that the mob lawyer who helped John “Junior” Gotti score three hung juries was involved in a drug-dealing operation inside a Brooklyn lockup, according to stunning new court papers.
Fred Hafetz, Cutler's attorney, said he planned to appeal the conviction and sentencing on constitutional grounds. He also said Cutler's comments had not made it difficult to find an unbiased jury for the Gotti case. Of the 215 prospective jurors interviewed before the trial, none said they might be biased in favor of Gotti.
NEW YORK, JUNE 10 -- Bruce Cutler, the pugnacious lawyer for mob kingpin John Gotti, may be an unlikely martyr for freedom of speech.
Lawyer Seth Ginsberg, who assisted Carnesi on the Gotti cases, called it “outrageous that this allegation is being made.” “Charlie Carnesi had the highest integrity and ethics, and would never violate the law for any reason, let alone on behalf of a client,” said Ginsberg, who represents a former co-defendant of Londonio’s.
Criminal defense attorney Albert J. Krieger died in Miami on Thursday, with his wife Irene Stoller Krieger at his side. He was 96.
The judge in that case ruled that Cutler, whose voice had been recorded in wiretapping evidence, might have to testify at the trial. Cutler did not testify, and Gotti was convicted and is now serving life in prison.
Bruce Cutler (born April 29, 1948) is an American criminal defense lawyer best known for having defended John Gotti, and for media appearances as a legal commentator....Bruce CutlerOccupationTrial attorneyKnown forRepresenting John Gotti and Phil SpectorWebsitewww.brucecutler.com3 more rows
Looking back on this era, the leader of the rival Lucchese family, Anthony 'Gaspipe' Casso, said: “What John Gotti did was the beginning of the end of Cosa Nostra.” When Gotti died, in 2002, destroyed by cancer, the era of the American gangster went with him, and so too the last remnants of the old New York of mean ...
247 Mulberry StreetThe Ravenite Social Club was an Italian American heritage club at 247 Mulberry Street, in Little Italy, New York City. It was used as a mob hangout and the storefront later became a shoe store, and as of 2022 is a men's clothing store.
Peter Gotti The following year, he was sentenced to another 25 years in a separate trial related to extortion and conspiring to murder Sammy Gravano. Peter passed away in prison on Feb. 25, 2021. It's believed that he had been replaced as acting boss by Domenico Cefalù as far back as 2011.
Original and current Five Families bossesOriginal family nameFounded byCurrent bossMaranzanoSalvatore MaranzanoMichael "The Nose" MancusoProfaciJoe ProfaciUnknownManganoVincent ManganoDomenico CefalùLucianoLucky LucianoLiborio Salvatore "Barney" Bellomo1 more row
Sammy Gravano, notorious gangster turned FBI informant, reflects 30 years later. "Being a gangster actually in my life was a curse," Gravano said. Gotti, the notorious Gambino family crime boss, was known for exuding his sense of power by wearing $1,800 suits, silk ties and cashmere topcoats.
When Cutler was convicted in January, Platt had said Cutler had engaged in "willful misconduct" and "had no choice but to obey the orders of the court.". "Imposing so harsh a sanction for the crime of speaking to reporters, may well send the signal that free speech is too risky, rather than that court orders must be obeyed," said lawyer Floyd ...
Manhattan lawyer Gregory Joseph, who heads a committee studying these questions for the New York City bar, said his committee hopes to develop guidelines to allow even more leeway for lawyers who speak to reporters, especially if it is more than a month before the trial.
U.S. District Judge Thomas C. Platt Jr. sentenced Cutler to 90 days of house arrest, fined him $5,000 and suspended his legal practice in the Eastern judicial district of New York, which includes Brooklyn, for 180 days. Platt also ordered Cutler to perform 200 hours of community service for each of three years' probation.
But reflecting the sentiments of others watching Cutler's case, the magazine said, "Cutler's own nastiness has served to disguise the nastiness of the case against him, which is nothing less than an attack on the First Amendment and on the presumption of innocence" for a defendant.
For lawyers, many of whom say that Cutler did break the law by flouting the judge's order, the problem may be the law itself. The American Bar Association this August is scheduled to consider new guidelines for courts that would allow defense attorneys more freedom to talk to the news media, especially if prosecutors are leaking negative information about their client to reporters.
Cutler, whose defense of Gotti succeeded in three acquittals and earned Gotti the title "The Teflon Don," was prohibited from representing Gotti at the 1991 trial. The judge in that case ruled that Cutler, whose voice had been recorded in wiretapping evidence, might have to testify at the trial. Cutler did not testify, and Gotti was convicted and is now serving life in prison.
Gotti, the prince of the Gambino crime family who is accused of attempted murder in the shooting 12 years ago of Curtis Sliwa, the talk show host .
July 31, 2004. As the prosecutors see it, it is hard to tell the lawyers from the defendants in the case against John A. Gotti , the prince of the Gambino crime family who is accused of attempted murder in the shooting 12 years ago of Curtis Sliwa, the talk show host.
3 . Gotti's retrial commenced on February 13, 2006 and ended in a mistrial on March 10, 2006. A third trial is scheduled for July 5, 2006.
813, 119 S.Ct. 1707, 143 L.Ed.2d 985 (1999). In Richardson, the defendant was charged with a violation of 21 U.S.C. § 848 (a), which makes it a crime to “engage [ ] in a continuing criminal enterprise.” A “continuing criminal enterprise” is defined as a violation of the federal drug statutes, where “such violation is a part of a continuing series of violations.” 21 U.S.C. § 848 (c) (2). Courts have interpreted the requirement of a “continuing series of violations” to require proof of a minimum of three violations. See, e.g., United States v. Simmons, 923 F.2d 934, 952 (2d Cir.1991); United States v. Valenzuela, 596 F.2d 1361, 1367 (9th Cir.1979). The Richardson Court considered whether conviction required unanimity only that there was a continuing series of violations, or required unanimity as to each of the violations necessary to establish the series. The Court explained:
In Carr, a count of the indictment charged defendant with conducting the affairs of an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity , in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962 (c). Three predicate acts were alleged to constitute the pattern of racketeering activity. During deliberations, the jury sent a note to the district court asking, “If we cannot come to a unanimous agreement on one of the three racketeering acts, what do we do? ․ Can we leave the boxes blank?” Id. at 222. The court responded: “ [T]o check either the box proved or the box not proved, there has to be a unanimous finding by all 12 jurors. If you're split 6-6, you can't check the not proved box. The not proved box has to be just as unanimous as a finding of not guilty as the ultimate finding.” Id. at 223. The jury found that all three predicate acts were proved beyond a reasonable doubt, and found defendant guilty.
Gotti was named in four counts of a federal criminal indictment in the Southern District of New York. This appeal concerns only Counts One and Two. 1 Count One, the substantive RICO count, alleging violation of § 1962 (c), charged Gotti with participating in the conduct of the affairs of a racketeering enterprise, namely, the Gambino Organized Crime Family, through a pattern of racketeering activity, which is defined by RICO as requiring “at least two acts of racketeering activity.” 18 U.S.C. § 1961 (5). The indictment specified several such acts: conspiring to kidnap, and kidnaping of, radio talk-show host Curtis Sliwa; conspiring to commit securities fraud; conspiring to commit extortion in the construction industry; and loansharking, and conspiring to commit loansharking. Count Two, the RICO conspiracy count, charged Gotti under § 1962 (d) with conspiring to commit the offense charged in Count One. In this opinion, we limit our discussion to Count One. Because Gotti's argument as to Count One fails, his argument as to Count Two necessarily fails as well.
Defendant John A. Gotti (“Gotti”) brings interlocutory appeal from an order of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Shira A. Scheindlin, J.), denying his post-trial application to bar retrial of Counts One and Two, which allege violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”), 18 U.S.C. § 1962. See United States v. Gotti, 413 F.Supp.2d 287 (S.D.N.Y.2005). The court declared a mistrial on those counts after the jury failed to reach a verdict. Gotti contends that because of the jury's failure to achieve unanimity on any two alleged acts of racketeering, he was entitled to judgment of acquittal on the RICO counts, and that the Double Jeopardy Clause bars retrial of those counts. In a summary order dated February 9, 2006, we affirmed, noting that an opinion would follow. This opinion explains our affirmance.
6 . The jury reported that as to the predicate act of conspiracy to commit extortion in the construction industry, the vote was eleven “proved” and one “not proved.” Likewise, as to the predicate act of loansharking, the vote was eleven “proved” and one “not proved.” Thus a minimum of ten jurors found that both were proved.
Unless you are unanimous in finding beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed a racketeering act charged, you must disregard that act in deciding whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty of racketeering. It is not sufficient that some of the jurors find that the defendant committed two of the acts while others of you find that the defendant committed different acts.
Mr. Gotti's lawyer, Albert J. Krieger, said only that he was surprised by the charges. "I didn't know about the indictment until it was first mentioned in court today," Mr. Krieger told The Associated Press after yesterday's proceedings, in which more tapes of Mr. Gotti and his associates, clandestinely recorded by Federal investigators, were played.
While prosecutors refused to say so, it was widely believed that the charges in yesterday's indictment came from Mr. Gravano, Mr. Gotti's former top aide, who became a Government informer last fall and is expected to testify against Mr. Gotti.
Judge Glasser ordered the precautions after prosecutors furnished evidence that there might have been tampering at previous trials. "The Gambino family's history of interfering with the judicial process is extensive and replete with instances of a variety of tampering schemes," prosecutors said in court documents.
They cited a 1984 case in State Supreme Court in Queens, in which Mr. Gotti was accused of assaulting and robbing Romual Piecyk. At the trial, Mr. Piecyk refused to identify Mr. Gotti, who was acquitted. Prosecutors said the witness had been intimidated by Gotti emissaries.
Gotti, the flamboyant, 51-year-old reputed leader of the Gambino crime family, the largest underworld group in the nation. Mr. Gotti has been acquitted in repeated state and Federal cases in recent years and is now on trial in Brooklyn on murder, loan sharking, tax fraud and other Federal racketeering charges.
The indictment by a Federal grand jury in Brooklyn charged that the juror, George H. Pape, told a friend with ties to the Gambino family that he would take a bribe to engineer an acquittal. It said that Mr. Gotti authorized the payment, and that his top lieutenant, Salvatore Gravano, gave $60,000 to the intermediary to be passed on to Mr. Pape, known then only as Juror No. 11. Unclear if Money Was Paid
Gotti. In the 1987 case, which took place in the same courthouse, Federal Judge Eugene H. Nickerson numbered the jurors, but did not restrict their movements or contacts.
Gotti had been held in jail since May after U.S. District Judge Eugene Nickerson revoked his $1-million bail amid reports that a witness against Gotti in a separate assault case had been threatened.
The other men acquitted were Gotti’s brother, Gene, 40; John Carneglia, 42; Wilfred Johnson, 52; Anthony Rampino, 47; Leonard DiMaria, 45, and Nicholas Corozzo, 46. All are from the New York City area.
He said prosecutors had created an “aura of fear” in the courtroom by using an anonymous jury, wiretap recordings and “photographs of people whispering together at weddings.”
After a series of highly publicized convictions of Mafia leaders in recent months, the verdict positions the 46-year-old Gotti as the nation’s most powerful mob figure, law enforcement officials alleged. The leaders of New York’s four other Mafia families are serving lengthy sentences in prison.
In her closing argument, Giacalone had said of the defendants: “They kill at their pleasure and they corrupt young people to fill their ranks.”
The jury of six men and six women deliberated for seven days. They sifted through 17,000 pages of testimony from 106 witnesses and hundreds of wiretap tapes produced during the seven-month trial. For their protection, the jurors’ names were not released.
FBI officials testified that they believed Gotti ordered the Castellano shooting, but no one has been charged. A rival Gambino group leader, Frank DeCicco, was killed in a car bomb explosion last April 13.
Carnesi – who portrayed himself in last year’s movie “ Gotti ,” which starred John Travolta as the late “Dapper Don” John Gotti – died of pancreatic cancer February 27. He was 69. Carnesi represented Junior Gotti at three of four racketeering trials that all ended in hung juries, including the last one in 2009, ...
Lawyer Seth Ginsberg, who assisted Carnesi on the Gotti cases, called it “outrageous that this allegation is being made.”
The jailhouse snitch said attorney Charles Carnesi, who died earlier this year, provided reputed Luchese soldier Christopher Londonio with confirmation of deposits into commissary accounts and tracking numbers from Western Union for payments tied to the sale of synthetic marijuana and cigarettes at the Metropolitan Detention Center, legal papers filed by Londonio say.
Snitch alleges Joh n Gotti Jr.’s lawyer was tied to jailhouse drug ring. John "Junior" Gotti (left) and his lawyer Charles Carnesi speak to the media outside US Federal Court in New York in 2006. Reuters. A federal informant claims that the mob lawyer who helped John “Junior” Gotti score three hung juries was involved in a drug-dealing operation ...
The informant, identified by a source as David Evangelista, 44, is currently awaiting sentencing for robbing two banks in November 2016, days after escaping from a Bronx halfway house. At the time of his escape, Evangelista was finishing up a 12-year-plus sentence for robbing two Manhattan banks in October 2005.
The informant alleged in 2017 that Londonio, who was Carnesi’s client at the time, confessed to peddling the contraband with members of the Bloods gang while they were all locked up in the MDC, according to the White Plains federal court filing.
Lawyer Matthew Mari said that “anyone who knew Charlie would laugh at the idea that he would do something like that.”