Wednesday, Dec. 17, 1997 | 10:59 a.m.
Former District Judge Gerard Bongiovanni walked slowly from the federal courthouse Tuesday night, obviously drained after starting the day on the witness stand and concluding it by listening to closing arguments in his bribery and corruption trial.
His 16-year-old daughter, Angela, was clinging to his arm, her eyes moist with emotion. She knew the jury's verdict -- which might come as soon as today -- could deprive him of his freedom and her of a father.
Bongiovanni's son, Gerard Bongiovanni Jr., solemnly carried a box of documents from the courthouse. He also had testified earlier Tuesday about the night in October 1995 that federal agents served a search warrant at the family's home to find purported bribe money that had been left by one of the judge's friends.
They indeed found $500 in marked money peeking through a hole in a pocket of the judge's shorts.
The man who had given him the money, the judge's golf and bowling buddy Paul Dottore, had the other half of the $1,000 alleged bribe payment that was part of an FBI "sting" operation.
That, coupled with assorted witnesses, more than 1,500 hours of wiretap tapes, stacks of documents and other evidence gathered over more than four years of FBI investigation were thrown at Bongiovanni and his attorney, Thomas Pitaro, during the two-and-a-half-week trial.
Prosecutors alleged to the jury in U.S. District Judge Lloyd George's courtroom that there was a grand conspiracy in the Bongiovanni case and Pitaro agreed.
They just couldn't agree on who the conspirators were.
Prosecutors alleged it was among the seedy group of friends that surrounded Bongiovanni and misused his judgship for their purposes -- sometimes involving pay for preferential treatment in such things as traffic tickets.
Two of those friends were Dottore and Terry Salem, admitted felons who became the government's star informants in exchange for sweetheart deals in their own cases.
Pitaro alleged during closing arguments that the true conspirators included FBI agents and the prosecutors who he said distorted innocent activities and embraced admitted crooks and liars -- particularly Dottore and Salem -- in their zeal to convict "a good man ... and a good judge."
Deliberations by the seven-woman, five-man jury were set to begin today after George reads them the instructions on the law in the case.
During closing arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Johnson recounted the numerous wiretapped telephone calls showing that bribe money was solicited by Dottore for a variety of judicial favors from Bongiovanni.
Bongiovanni denied during his testimony that any of that bribe money ever went to him and Pitaro noted that some promised favors never materialized.
Pitaro conceded that Bongiovanni did help associates and friends of associates with such matters as scheduling traffic tickets for resolution or granting no-bail releases for prisoners. But the defense lawyer said that such acts are routine for all judges and legal under Nevada law.
Pitaro chastised prosecutors and FBI agents for misleading the jury about the way the state justice system operates and suggested the reason that was done was because their careers could be affected one way or the other by the outcome of the trial.
"Do you really believe this is just another case?" he asked the jurors. "My God, this is the stuff of headlines."
But in addition to the minor judicial actions, the jury also heard evidence of agreements for $5,000 bribes paid through Dottore to influence Salem's theft case -- which actually was a bogus case fabricated by the FBI as a sting -- and the civil case of show producer Jeff Kutash.
Kutash, who was involved in a civil case over control of his "Splash" show on the Strip, stood trial this summer on charges of paying Bongiovanni the bribe, but that jury didn't believe Dottore or the other evidence and acquitted Kutash.
Pitaro argued that Dottore was the only one who profiteered from his admitted bribe solicitations and said his stories of passing the money along to Bongiovanni couldn't be believed.
Dottore admitted perjuring himself at his own bank fraud trial, lying under oath on other occasions, and lying to friends, family and even the FBI to gain money or an advantage.
Pitaro told the jury that if they can't believe Dottore, they shouldn't convict Bongiovanni.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jane Shoemaker argued that the prosecution's case "is not based on Dottore" and everything he testified had occurred can be concluded from the wiretaps and other evidence if the jurors use their "common sense."
Johnson argued that FBI wiretaps during 1994 and 1995 showed that Dottore called or visited Bongiovanni after each purported bribe deal and if Dottore was pocketing the money he wouldn't have gone through "a lot of extra steps for no reason at all."
Calling Bongiovanni "a corrupt judge," Johnson told the jury that "your friends are your mirror" and Bongiovanni made such people as Dottore his friends and associates.
But Pitaro countered that the judge was a trusting friend and loving family man who cared for a wife bedridden with multiple sclerosis and diabetes and became mother and father to his two children. His wife died early this year.
"Balance the people," the defense attorney urged. "Make a decision that says justice finally was done for Jerry Bongiovanni."
archive
