Lawyer returns to defend Bongiovanni

Bill Gang

Tuesday, Sept. 9, 1997 | 9:53 a.m.

Veteran defense attorney Tom Pitaro, who was the original defense attorney in the bribery case against former District Judge Gerard Bongiovanni, is back on board in time for a Dec. 1 trial.

Shortly after Bongiovanni was indicted in late 1995, Pitaro left the case, stating that the embattled judge could neither afford his services nor did he have time to investigate nearly two years of FBI wiretaps.

But Pitaro told U.S. District Judge Lloyd George on Monday that Bongiovanni has found the means to hire him and that most of the wiretap tapes have been reviewed by the defendant and other attorneys.

Pitaro also is going to have a transcript of the trial of Las Vegas show producer Jeff Kutash, which was characterized by federal prosecutors and Kutash's attorney as a trial run for the Bongiovanni case.

Much of the evidence that will be presented in the Bongiovanni case was presented to the jury in the Kutash case, although much of it had nothing to do with the charges against the show producer.

But while a couple of the star witnesses claimed that Kutash passed along $5,000 to Bongiovanni for a favorable ruling in a civil case, the jury didn't buy their story. Kutash was acquitted last week of the four felony counts against him.

His attorney, Oscar Goodman, had called the witnesses "rats" who sold their testimony to federal prosecutors for cash and lenient treatment on criminal cases.

The charges against Bongiovanni, however, are more complex and the evidence more extensive -- including $500 in marked money that was passed to Bongiovanni by his one-time friend, and now federal informant, Paul Dottore.

The money that was part of an FBI sting operation was recovered in a search of the then-judge's house in October 1995.

Dottore has testified that he solicited bribes to ensure outcomes in court cases and funneled the money to Bongiovanni, usually taking a little off the top for himself.

Dottore, 53, and another star prosecution witness, Terry Salem, were caught and convicted on bank fraud charges for ripping off the bank account of a dead man. To escape prison, they agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in the case against Bongiovanni.

At Kutash's trial, prosecutors downplayed the importance of the witnesses, arguing that their testimony was supported by wiretap tapes of Bongiovanni, Dottore and others over the two-year federal investigation.