Defense views hung jury as a win

Bill Gang

Tuesday, Dec. 23, 1997 | 10:53 a.m.

"Jerry's home with his kids and that's where he should be," attorney Thomas Pitaro said of former District Judge Gerard Bongiovanni after a hung jury was declared in his bribery and corruption trial.

The federal jury had deliberated into its fourth day Monday when it told U.S. District Judge Lloyd George that it was unable to agree on a verdict in any of the 13 counts against Bongiovanni.

The votes apparently were in favor of the defense but not unanimous as required by law.

Some jurors indicated the vote on the major counts were 10-2 for acquittal and 7-5 for acquittal on the charges of lying to a federal officer.

"This gives some sense of how the community felt about the government's case and I hope the government sees that," Pitaro said.

"We have to consider that a victory under adverse circumstances," the veteran defense attorney continued. "The FBI investigated for over four years."

It may be a short lived victory.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jane Shoemaker said she anticipates retrying Bongiovanni on the racketeering, bribery and mail and wire fraud charges, probably in the Spring if George has three weeks available.

Shoemaker said the hung jury didn't surprise her but the lean in the votes to the defense side did.

"You never know what a jury is going to do," she said, conceding it was a "tough case."

It was her second tough trial on Bongiovanni bribe charges and her best outcome.

In August, she took show producer Jeff Kutash to trial on charges he gave Bongiovanni a $5,000 for a favorable ruling in a civil case over control of his "Splash" show at the Riviera hotel-casino.

Although many of the same witnesses and much of the same evidence was presented at that trial -- including testimony from Bongiovanni's friend Paul Dottore that he collected the bribe and passed it on to thejudge -- the jury acquitted Kutash.

Shoemaker, in fact, had billed that trial as a "trial run" for the Bongiovanni case.

The prosecution had presented many of the same tapes from the wiretaps that had been conducted on Bongiovanni and Dottore over a two year period in 1994 and 1995.

Dottore was memorialized on tape soliciting bribes for judicial favors from a variety of people, but there were no "smoking gun" tapes indicating the bribes were funneled to the judge.

Dottore, who was convicted of bank fraud and then became a government informant to get a reduced sentence, did testify that Bongiovanni was given cash.

But the jury in the Kutash trial didn't believe him and most of the jurors in the Bongiovanni apparently agreed.

Even a government "sting" operation didn't make the connection for the juries, although $500 in marked money was found in Bongiovanni's pocket when federal agents served a search warrant on his home on Oct. 17, 1995.

The money was paid by Terry Salem, a friend of Dottore's who already was a government snitch, for Bongiovanni's preferential treatment of his bogus criminal case that had been set up and guided to the judge's courtroom.

Although Dottore collected $3,500 in all from Salem -- who also had been convicted of bank fraud -- testimony at Bongiovanni's trial indicated that no favors resulted from the bribe.

Salem, according to testimony, was paid over $50,000 by the FBI for his help in pursuing Bongiovanni. He also is expected to get a reduced sentence for his cooperation.