Gotti Lawyer Who Burnished "Teflon Don" Image Dies

Bruce Cutler (left) and John Gotti.

Bruce Cutler could have won a Tony Award multiple times for courtroom theatrics.

During the 1987 racketeering trial against Gambino crime family boss, John Gotti, the swaggering defense attorney famously threw the government's indictment into the trash can in front of the jury.

"It's garbage. That's where it belongs!" Cutler bellowed.

He also wore exaggerated, "spear point" collars on his fitted shirts, just like his best known client. Some people called them "capo collars."

"I think he wanted to be John Gotti," one-time gangster Anthony Ruggiano, Jr. told Netflix in the 2023 series, "Get Gotti." "He dressed like John Gotti and he would shake our hands and kiss our cheeks like a wiseguy."

John Gotti and defense attorney Bruce Cutler outside criminal court in Manhattan, 1990.

(Photo © New York Daily News)

So when I heard that Bruce Cutler died this week at the age of 77, from complications of diabetes and kidney disease, I felt sad at the loss of a true, New York character.

A graduate of Brooklyn's Poly Prep High School and Hamilton College, where he was a star football and lacrosse player, Cutler was influenced by his father, Murray--a former NYPD detective who graduated law school.

After a stint in the Brooklyn District Attorney's office as a prosecutor, Bruce Cutler went to work on the other side.

Cutler successfully defended John Gotti in three, high-profile cases that earned the expensive-suited boss a new nickname: Teflon Don.

Cutler's first win for Team Gotti happened in 1986, not long after Gotti, a resident of Howard Beach, Queens, was identified as the new godfather. This was shortly after the December 1985 rubout of previous Gambino boss, Paul Castellano.

Body of Gambino boss Paul Castellano on sidewalk outside Sparks Steakhouse in Manhattan in December 1985, after Gotti ordered “hit.”

Queens prosecutors quickly rushed to trial with an assault case against Gotti that dated back more than a year.

But the Polish-born, refrigerator repairman who had pressed criminal charges against Gotti initially went missing before the 1986 trial. When he finally showed up in court, Romual Piecyk said he couldn't identify John Gotti as the man who had punched him and taken his money, during a dispute about double-parking. This spawned the famous, New York Post headline, "I Forgotti."

In 1987, Cutler's boisterous defense in Gotti's first, federal trial, which resulted in acquittal, enhanced Cutler's image as the godfather's effective, good luck charm. It later emerged that one of the jurors was bribed by a Gotti associate.

Gotti's (and Cutler's) legend only grew, after the defense attorney secured another win for John Gotti in state court in early 1990. Gotti was acquitted of ordering the shooting of carpenter's union official, John O'Connor. Prosecutors presented a much-analyzed audio tape that claimed Gotti was saying, "We're gonna bust him up." Gotti refused to even wear headphones in court, when the tapes were played, later telling me, "I'd rather listen to Julio Iglesias."

Bruce Cutler was a TV reporter's best friend when it came to the art of the soundbite. And he would over-enunciate our names when giving a response, as he did when addressing "PAAH-blo," the late TV news reporter Pablo Guzman, who was covering Gotti for Fox 5.

Never shy about calling government witnesses "scum" or "lowlifes," Cutler was always available to me when I had a 12 noon deadline at WCBS Channel 2 in the early 1990's. He even agreed to talk, when the government released damning, wiretap evidence during pre-trial hearings for a second, federal Gotti case. Referring to 1989 murder victim Robert DiBernardo, Gotti was recorded saying, "I was in jail when I whacked him. I knew why it was being done. I done it anyway."

Cutler was ultimately prevented from defending Gotti in a fourth case, when Judge I. Leo Glasser accepted the prosecution argument that Cutler was "house counsel" for the Gambino crime family. The U.S. Attorney's office in Brooklyn had contended it might call Cutler as a witness at the 1992 trial, but that never happened.

Despite a "gag order" issued by Judge Glasser, who told attorneys to try the Gotti case only in the courtroom, Bruce Cutler was charged with criminal contempt in 1992 for statements made to the media, calling prosecutors "publicity-hungry." He also claimed the trial was essentially throwing the U.S. Constitution out the window.

John Gotti was convicted on April 2, 1992 of all 13 federal counts and sent to prison for life. Bruce Cutler was convicted in 1994 for contempt of court and sentenced to 90 days of house arrest. His law license to practice in the Eastern District of New York was rescinded for 180 days.

Yet when John Gotti died of throat cancer in June 2002, Bruce Cutler was outside the funeral home, defending his client once again.

"You might say he was notorious," Cutler said of Gotti. "I say he was a remarkable man. He was a good, tough man."

Bruce Cutler spoke outside John Gotti’s 2002 funeral in Queens.

Cutler then elaborated on what he meant.

"I don't say tough in the Sunday school sense, MAY-RY," Cutler added, once again over-enunciating this reporter's name. "Because of the way he battled cancer, living on defiance for four years, when the medical profession counted him out three years ago."

Bruce Cutler later went on to do some work defending the notorious "Mafia Cops," former NYPD detectives who were convicted of killing gangsters and mob associates on duty.

But Cutler will always be remembered for his close association and successful representation of the Dapper Don, John Gotti. He even wrote a book about it.