Big mob trial unlikely for Gambino defendants


The case against the scores of reputed Gambino crime family members and associates rounded up last week is so massive that it will have to be broken up or risk running afoul of court rules barring massive trials, defense attorneys said yesterday.

Some of the lawyers also said they are having problems arranging jailhouse visits at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center because the key mob defendants are in solitary confinement and are barred from having contact with each other.

Last night lawyers for reputed Gambino consiglieri Joseph Corozzo filed papers saying he and the other defendants were being held in solitary at the request of Brooklyn prosecutors, and asked for his release from detention. Similar requests were expected to be filed today.
The order means only one lawyer at a time is permitted to visit a client, causing some attorneys to miss client visits altogether, sources said. About 18 defendants, including reputed acting Gambino boss John D'Amico, 73, are being held without bail.

Officials at the detention center in Sunset Park didn't return a telephone call seeking comment. Robert Nardoza, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Brooklyn, declined to comment.

Yesterday two defendants who were out of town during the bust received bail after pleading not guilty. Well- known Brooklyn restaurateur and alleged Gambino soldier Joseph Chirico, 63, was freed by U.S. magistrate-judge Robert Levy on a $1 million bond. Reputed soldier Jerome Brancato, 76, was freed on $500,000 bond.

The 62 defendants make the Gambino case unwieldy, said attorney Joel Winograd, who is defending Michael Urciuoli, 46.

"The case has so many charges and so many wiretaps and surveillances that it will not be tried for anybody for one to two years," said Winograd.

After the famed 21-defendant Pizza Connection trial went 17 months in 1987, the U.S. Court of Appeals said judges should split up the case if trials might last more than four months with 10 defendants.

"Most of these things don't belong in the same indictment," said D'Amico's attorney, Bob Blossner of Manhattan. "The court will have to put their hand on it at some point."

Susan Kellman, who is defending reputed Gambino captain Leonard DiMaria, thinks Brooklyn prosecutors will have to come up with a plan to divide the case.

But Diarmuid White, a noted Manhattan trial and appeals lawyer, expects plea negotiations to whittle down the defendants. The problem with breaking up cases means delays for some defendants could violate their rights to a speedy trial, he said.

"The judge has to order serial trials and therefore at end of the line have to wait," said White.

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