Former judge may lose lawyer for corruption trial

Rachael Levy

Friday, Aug. 1, 1997 | 9:16 a.m.

The attorney for indicted former District Judge Gerard Bongiovanni is expected to be disqualified from the case because he may be called to testify about his relationship with a key government witness.

Bongiovanni is facing a trial Aug. 25 on bribery and public corruption charges. The former state judge is accused of accepting money and gifts in exchange for fixing traffic tickets and ruling a particular way in civil and criminal cases.

His attorney, John Fadgen, is accused of acting as the attorney for the middleman, Paul Dottore, who pleaded guilty to soliciting more than $30,000 and agreed to testify against Bongiovanni, his longtime friend.

Fadgen also is accused of relaying information for Dottore to the former judge after the two were indicted last year, along with casino show producer Jeff Kutash. Kutash is accused of paying Dottore in return for a favorable ruling from Bongiovanni in a civil matter.

Las Vegas federal Judge Lloyd George said Thursday during a hearing that he believed Fadgen's information on Dottore made him an "extraordinarily important witness." Although George declined to rule from the bench, he made it clear he favored the government's argument.

"If I was trying this case as an attorney, I would want to call Mr. Fadgen," he said.

Such a scenario where a defendant's attorney can be subpoenaed to testify creates a potential conflict of interest during the trial and would weaken a verdict, George said.

The two attorneys representing Fadgen and Bongiovanni during the hearing tried to reassure George that Bongiovanni would waive his rights to call Fadgen as a witness and would not appeal on grounds for ineffective assistance of counsel if found guilty.

And Fadgen's lawyer, Ken Cory, said his client had no intention of testifying and promised to not use any of the information he received from Dottore when he cross-examined him on the witness stand.

But George left them with little hope. "It would be unwise to proceed," he said.

The federal judge is expected to decide whether to disqualify Fadgen early next week. If the attorney is removed from the case, it is highly unlikely that a new lawyer would be prepared to go to trial in less than a month. There are more than 1,000 wiretap conversations and many paper documents to be reviewed.

Bongiovanni's former attorney, Donald Green, has reviewed all the tapes, but the defendant has indicated he does not want Green to represent him.

If Bongiovanni's trial is postponed, it is possible that Kutash's will go forward as scheduled. Kutash's attorney, Oscar Goodman, refused to indicate whether he planned to call Fadgen as a witness.