Bruce Cutler, a combative New York criminal defense lawyer who won acquittals three times for the mob boss John J. Gotti, and whose intimidating cross-examinations of witnesses became known as a “Brucification,” has died in Brooklyn. He was 77.
He died of complications of kidney failure late Sunday night or early Monday at a care facility, said J. Bruce Maffeo, a lawyer and former federal prosecutor who was a friend of Mr. Cutler’s.
Bald, stout and barrel-chested — The New Yorker once said he resembled Telly Savalas crossed with Jesse Ventura — Mr. Cutler embraced a pit bull approach to jurisprudence that made him a tabloid favorite for years.
In “Mob Star,” their 1988 book about Mr. Gotti, Gene Mustain and Jerry Capeci wrote that Mr. Cutler, in his raspy Brooklynese, could “take the prosecution’s evidence, spin it, scuff it, twist it and pound it to a pulp, until it was nothing more than a lumpy pile of reasonable doubt.”
Mr. Cutler won acquittals for Mr. Gotti in highly publicized trials in 1986, 1987 and 1990, earning his well-dressed client, who was long known as the Dapper Don, a new nickname: the Teflon Don. In the process, Mr. Cutler drew national attention and dubious acclaim as a flamboyantly effective counselor. He said immodestly that he excelled at “the crucible of cross-examination.” (The tabloids preferred the term “Brucification.”)
At the trials, Mr. Cutler nimbly defended Mr. Gotti, the reputed head of the Gambino crime family, against various charges, including assault, robbery, racketeering and conspiracy. One allegation was that he had ordered the shooting of a carpenters’ union president. In the racketeering case, one juror was later convicted of accepting a bribe to vote not guilty.
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The post Bruce Cutler, Pugnacious Lawyer for the Mob Boss John Gotti, Dies at 77 appeared first on New York Times.
