Monday, March 24, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
In a development that bodes ill for a former District Court judge charged with accepting bribes, a crucial government informant emerged relatively unscathed from defense lawyers' efforts to brand him a crook and liar.
The credibility of Terry Salem, who says he paid as much as $5,000 so Judge Gerard Bongiovanni would dismiss criminal charges against him, was tested last week -- and remained intact.
Based partly on Salem's word, a federal jury on Saturday convicted Bongiovanni's longtime friend, Paul Dottore, and another Las Vegas resident, John "Jack" Jerdan, of stealing almost $200,000 from a dead man's bank account.
The bank fraud case can be viewed as a test run of the government's evidence against Bongiovanni, whose trial is set for April 7. Both cases rely on Salem to interpret hours of often-ambiguous wiretapped telephone conversations.
Defense lawyers tried to undermine Salem's testimony throughout the week-long trial. They argued that Salem, once a key player in the bank scam, cheated his co-conspirators out of their fair share of the dead man's money.
They pointed out that Salem was questioned less than a month ago by Arizona police, who suspected he had knowledge of a counterfeiting operation. His house was searched and marijuana, blank Social Security cards and other false identification was found, defense attorney Jim Erbeck said.
Erbeck and the other defense lawyers suggested that Salem, who was paid about $50,000 for his assistance to the government, would change his story to save his own skin. (In addition to the government help, Salem had to plead guilty to bank fraud. He is facing one to three years in prison.)
"The jury's expected to believe a man who was willing to lie for $1,000 and now believe him when he is paid $50,000?" Erbeck asked.
"He's willing to sell his testimony to the highest bidder and he's willing to cheat and steal to get the deal and then after the deal he continues his criminal activity. The arrest makes their case look bad."
The relentless attack on Salem's character created some doubt among jurors, according to jury members interviewed Saturday. Without the wiretap conversations corroborating Salem's word, two jurors said it would have been difficult to reach a guilty verdict.
"We used (Salem) just to tie it together," foreman Roger Thompson said. "We assumed that there was a possibility that he may have sold his testimony."
But at the same time, one juror said it would have been difficult to convict solely on the wiretaps because the conversations left much unsaid.
"That's not the way I have a conversation on the telephone -- 'Yeah. Yeah. No. No,'" said the juror, who asked not to be named.
Despite the doubts instilled by defense lawyers, it appears that when Salem's testimony is coupled with wiretaps, federal prosecutors have a strong case.
And unless the defense changes its strategy -- which so far has only chipped away at Salem's credibility -- the U.S. attorney's office appears to have the advantage in next month's trial against Bongiovanni.
"(Salem) put himself at risk. He went out there and made cases on a lot of people," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jane Shoemaker said during closing arguments in the bank fraud case. "You will find that Terry Salem was a credible witness."
In an explanation that likely will be repeated during Bongiovanni's trial, Shoemaker explained that it is difficult for the government to prosecute these cases without making a deal with someone on the inside of the criminal conspiracy.
"No one likes that and we're not asking you to like that, ladies and gentlemen," she said. "But you've got to understand ... you're not going to find innocent people ... to tell you what happened in this scam."
Salem is described in an Arizona police affidavit as a meticulous pack rat who documents and enjoys bragging about his criminal accomplishments, among them cheating at casino card games, cashing fraudulent checks and making false IDs.
Salem's participation in the criminal world dates to his childhood in Detroit, according to sources and public documents. His family is well-connected to the La Cosa Nostra crime syndicate, which for 15 years provided protection to Salem's uncle, Freddy Salem, and the multimillion-dollar craps game he ran, according to Dec. 7, 1983, Gaming Control Board minutes.
Salem also has ties to the Mafia, the minutes reported. The Gaming Control Board forbid Salem and his father, Frouz Salem, from operating a Las Vegas sports book based, in part, on the son's association with Tony "The Ant" Spilotro.
Spilotro, the notorious mobster who represented the Mafia's hidden interests in Las Vegas casinos, allegedly used to play pinochle at Terry Salem's pizza parlor, according to several sources.
"Metropolitan Police surveillance teams confirm that this restaurant in fact is known as one of Spilotro's hangouts and that on one occasion Spilotro was observed behind the counter by a law enforcement officer making himself right at home, and that when questioned on this, when Terry was questioned in reference to this, he stated that Spilotro was just an acquaintance of (mob associate Herbie) Blitzstein's and (said) 'I treated him like any other customer,'" the December 1983 minutes reported.
Salem's decision to become a government informant -- a "snitch" or "rat," according to defense lawyers -- resulted in a murder contract against him, Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Johnson said Saturday.
The prosecutor alleged that 10 months ago Dottore offered to pay $15,000 to $25,000 for Salem's death.
Johnson alleged that Dottore said there were "a couple rats in the case (that) needed to be poisoned and the case would go away." Ultimately, the hit man decided not to accept the offer, Johnson said.
Salem's security was a great priority during last week's trial. Each day FBI agents secreted him out of the federal courthouse following his testimony so media could not take his photograph and expose his identity to the public -- and a hit man.
This is not the first time Salem has had a contract on his head, according to a videotaped interview between him and Glendale, Ariz., police officers. Salem had orchestrated his own murder contract in a convoluted scam to make money, he admitted on tape.
"Not a bad scam, Terry," one of the officers said.
"It was OK. I don't do that anymore," Salem replied.
Dottore's attorney, Erbeck, argued that Dottore, a former car salesman and casino employee who has not held steady employment for the past few years, would not be able to afford a hit man.
He contended that the government was asking that Dottore be held in jail until the second trial in order to "squeeze" him into testifying against Bongiovanni.
It is possible that Dottore and defendant Jerdan may agree to cooperate with the government's prosecution of Bongiovanni in hopes of getting lighter sentences in the bank fraud case. Both men are facing at least three years in prison.
Jerdan, who is named in Bongiovanni's indictment, allegedly paid a bribe to get the judge to dismiss a criminal traffic violation. Dottore -- who will stand trial next month along with the judge -- allegedly acted as a middleman between Bongiovanni and those seeking judicial favors.
(The third defendant in next month's trial is Jeff Kutash, producer of the casino show "Splash II.")
The two federal prosecutors refused to discuss whether they would be seeking the cooperation of Dottore and Jerdan. But if last week's guilty conviction is an indication of what is to come, the two men's testimony may not be necessary.
The "most damning evidence" is the tapes," Shoemaker said. "There's no way to get around it. You're stuck with the evidence."
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