A former caretaker of the Ravenite Social Club – John Gotti’s Little Italy headquarters – claims veteran mob lawyer Richard Rehbock did such a lousy job defending him on a murder charge that he deserves a new trial. 

Norman Dupont, (right) whose jobs ranged from fetching coffee for the Dapper Don to cleaning up after the crew, says that Rehbock failed to call three family members as alibi witnesses and another witness who could have helped his case.

Dupont, 53, also wanted to testify in his own defense, but Rehbock wouldn’t let him, he says. All told, Rehbock’s lawyering was ineffective and bordered on incompetent, the ex-coffee man insists. 

The murder in question – of car service dispatcher Harmon Fuchs – took place about 11 hours after Gotti’s last hurrah, a Feb. 9, 1990 acquittal of state assault charges that the Dapper Don celebrated at the Ravenite until after 8 PM. Prosecutors say Dupont killed Fuchs about 1:30 AM to “send a message” to the dispatcher’s boss, Joseph Fabozzia, who owed Dupont money. 

When the trial took place in 1995, Rehbock was in the midst of a messy divorce – and a tax evasion probe initiated by his wife – that so clouded his judgment that his representation was ineffective as a matter of law, according to Dupont’s current attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman. 

At a hearing before Brooklyn Federal Judge Raymond Dearie this month,

Rehbock appeared to agree with Lichtman’s assessment when he testified that he hadn’t noticed the exact time of the murder in a document he got from the prosecution, as he should have. 

“That police report troubles me,” said Rehbock, “because I think that police report should have been a reliance for filing the Rule 12 statement,” a notification to the court that the defendant has potential alibi witnesses – in Dupont’s case, two sisters and his wife.

When an incredulous Dearie remarked that Rehbock should have tried to “focus …if not exclusively, sharply on establishing the time of the murder” to determine whether the alibi testimony would be pertinent, Rehbock said: “I don’t disagree with you at all.”

Dupont’s wife – who gave birth to a son four days after the killing – and his sisters said they recalled Feb. 9, 1990 very well. Not only was Gotti’s acquittal “all over the news,” it was also the same evening that the expectant parents asked Dupont’s sister and her husband to be the child’s godparents. They testified that Dupont got home about 9:15, had gone to sleep before midnight and could not have killed Fuchs.

They told Dearie they wanted to testify but Rehbock refused to call them, saying that his questioning of the prosecution’s only witnesses – two admitted murderers who contradicted each other – had been so effective that “he had the murder charge beaten.”   

Rehbock testified that they had told him that Dupont was home before trial but

for strategic reasons he decided not to call the family members as alibi witnesses, and not to call the owner of the car service, and to tell Dupont in “the strongest terms” not to testify.

“I was confident that we were in good shape,” said Rehbock.

He testified however that from 1992 through 1997 he was stressed out by a “very very very messy” divorce case and a tax evasion probe that led to a tax fraud conviction. Rehbock also conceded that Dupont did not know Rehbock was the target of a criminal investigation at the time – which is often grounds for a reversal of a conviction. 

The feds view Dupont’s claims and Rehbock’s admissions as just a little too convenient. At the hearing, assistant U.S. Attorney William Gurin cast doubt on the claims of Dupont’s relatives by getting each to concede that they had never told police, prosecutors, the judge – at a bail hearing or at sentencing – or the probation department that Dupont was home at the time the crime was committed. 

If Dupont wins a new trial, however, prosecutors will be hard pressed to convict him again. One of the two witnesses, Guy Zappulla, killed a girlfriend after being released and is back in prison serving 25 years to life.

Several readers questioned an assertion in last week’s column about Thomas (Huck) Carbonaro (right) that the Aug. 8, 1990 killing of Edward Garofalo was the last murder Gotti ordered before his arrest in December, noting that Gambino soldier Louis DiBono was killed on Oct. 4, 1990.

Gang Land stands corrected, with an explanation.

According to FBI tapes, Gotti ordered DiBono’s execution in March, 1990, months before Garofalo's slaying. But, said one source: “The original hit team could not execute. Once Gotti learned where DiBono was working, he reordered the murder and dispatched a new set of shooters to whack him. It only took a few days (for wiseguys Bobby Borriello and Charles Carneglia) to accomplish the task.”

So, for those keeping score at home, Garofalo was Gotti’s next to last mob hit, and Sammy Bull Gravano’s 18^th. DiBono was their last. 

FBI agent Kevin Hallinan, who has been investigating wiseguys for more than 10 years, couldn’t believe his ears last year when Luchese soldier Vincent (Vinny Baldy) Salanardi (left) started talking to fugitive mobster Joseph Datello on one of two wiretapped cell phones.

Hallinan, along with the entire FBI Luchese squad and federal prosecutors Thomas Seigel and Nicolas Bourtin, figured it wouldn’t be long before they nailed Datello.

Even Datello seemed to sense his time had come when he told Salanardi on Mar. 1 to “be careful because the cops could be listening to his phone,” Hallinan wrote in an affidavit about the conversation.

“Which one?” asked Salanardi.
“The one we’re talking on,” said Datello 

“Salanardi explained that he was not concerned because he used (that) telephone only to speak to Datello,” wrote Hallinan, adding that “Salanardi said the cops were on him recently to see if he was doing ‘family business.’”

“Even after (Datello’s) arrest,” wrote Hallinan, “Salanardi continued to use (the same cellphone) in furtherance of his criminal activities.”

The feds undoubtedly hope Vinny Baldy’s judgment is a little better these days. As Gang Land disclosed May 1, Salanardi no longer speaks to Datello. He’s in a special federal prison unit for cooperating witnesses talking about “family business” with Hallinan and the prosecutors.  

Mob Star: The Story of John Gotti

Mob Star: The Story of John Gotti – the book it took yours truly and Gene Mustain 17 years to do – tells the complete saga of John Gotti, from his treacherous rise to his defiant downfall. Although we didn't know it at the time, we began working on "Mob Star" in 1985, when we began covering the Gotti story as news reporters.

The first edition came out in 1988, and we finished this new edition three days before Gotti died in June 2002. We added a postscript, and Alpha Books has distributed it to the nation's bookstores.

With a 40,000-word update, the new edition contains the entire Gotti saga right up to his time in prison and his death from throat cancer.

The 378 page, full-size book uses eight additional chapters, a prologue and an epilogue to complete the story we began telling (better than any other reporters, we might add!) when we covered the Gotti-orchestrated, midtown Manhattan assassination of former Gambino boss Paul Castellano.

For the last and best words on Gotti, this is the book to have. It is specially priced at Amazon.com at $11.87, more than five bucks off the suggested retail price.

    Not Really For Idiots

Whether you're a Gang Land regular or an occasional visitor, you'll enjoy  "The Complete Idiot's Guide to The Mafia," a book I wrote for Alpha Books. It's filled with real stuff about real wiseguys and insight about the ways that mobsters make their money. It's 343 pages of true stories of life and death, honor and betrayal. Get it at your local book store, or at Gang Land's favorite, Amazon.com, where the powers that be have knocked the price down to $13.27, so low I am concerned that the Godfather of online booksellers has forgotten about my end.