Starting to look like the prosecution is giving up....


U.S. May Be Ready to Say ‘Enough,’ Lawyers Believe

By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
Published: September 28, 2006
If there is such a thing as a cost-benefit analysis of the prosecution of John A. Gotti, the ledger is looking pretty red on the government’s side, defense lawyers who were not involved in the Gotti case said yesterday.

The financial cost has probably run into the millions of dollars, the lawyers said, and the public relations cost of prosecuting Mr. Gotti three times and failing to persuade three juries of his guilt may be even bigger.

“There comes a point where anything they do seems vindictive, and by pushing this trial three times, they may be at or very near that point,” Gerald Shargel, whose clients have included Mr. Gotti’s father, John J. Gotti, the late Gambino family don, said yesterday. “It’s the ‘enough already’ principle. I think people stop thinking about the charges in the case, but rather, what are you doing to the guy.”

Heather Tasker, a spokeswoman for the United States attorney in New York, Michael J. Garcia, said she could not estimate the cost of prosecuting Mr. Gotti. “The office doesn’t track and can’t offer cost analyses for individual cases,” she said. “However, we carefully consider the appropriate use of resources when prosecuting cases.”

One former prosecutor, Mark Pomerantz, a partner in the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind Wharton & Garrison, said he did not remember ever making a decision to go to trial based on the potential cost. “It’s about doing the right thing,” he said, “and part of doing the right thing is the awareness that your resources are scarce. At some point, you say to yourself, ‘You know what, I gave this one the college try, and it’s time to move on,’ and I think they’re at that time.”

Mr. Pomerantz represented Frank P. Quattrone, the former investment banker, who faced the prospect of a third trial earlier this year after a federal appeals court overturned his 2004 conviction on obstruction of justice charges. Ultimately, the government decided not to try him again.

Besides Mr. Gotti and Mr. Quattrone, among the high-profile defendants who have faced repeat trials are Don King, the boxing promoter, and Charles Schwarz, a former police officer charged with violating the civil rights of Abner Louima, who was sodomized with a broomstick in a police station bathroom..

The longer the prosecution the more the finances favor the government, said Mr. Schwarz’s lawyer, Ronald Fischetti, who represented him without pay for three years.

“You’ve got to understand that the government is all-powerful, they can pour resources into a trial, which makes it next to impossible for the individual defendant to match them,” Mr. Fischetti said. Mr. Fischetti and prosecutors settled in the middle of Mr. Schwarz’s fourth trial. He was sentenced to 60 months and is due out of jail next month, Mr. Fischetti said.

Before this trial, Mr. Gotti complained that he was hard-pressed to pay his lawyers, in part because the government had tied up his assets.

Assistant United States’ attorneys are paid fixed salaries, and they often work more for the experience and the prestige than for the money. Starting salaries range from $76,787 for a lawyer with one to three years of experience to $117,976 for a lawyer with nine years of experience, Mr. Garcia’s office said yesterday.

Victor Hou, the assistant United States attorney who delivered closing arguments in Mr. Gotti’s second and third trials, has been with the office since 2001. Fourth trials are extremely rare, lawyers said. “I think the conventional wisdom among defense lawyers is three strikes and you’re out,” Mr. Pomerantz said.

“If John Gotti were regarded in the same breath as a terrorist, I don’t think anybody in the public would question the devotion of resources to his continued prosecution,” Mr. Pomerantz said.

Yet the prosecutor may be reluctant to send a signal that he is letting up the pressure on organized crime, said James B. Jacobs, a law professor at New York University and an expert on organized crime. “That would end up nullifying all the efforts that have been made in the previous 20 years,” Mr. Jacobs said.

The Gotti case almost certainly does not rank as the most expensive federal prosecution. Prosecutors tried his father repeatedly, albeit not on the same charges every time, before winning a conviction.


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/nyregion/28cost.html


Ace

There are things that have to be done and you do them and you never talk about them. You don`t try to justify them, they can`t be justified. You just do them. Then you forget it.