Lawyer Tries To Distance Gotti From Mob Murders

NEW YORK - John Gotti's attorney tried yesterday to distance the reputed mob boss from several murders described by former associate Salvatore "Sammy Bull" Gravano, suggesting Gravano ordered the killings for his own reasons.

Gravano, who admits to killing 19 people and says he's lived a life of crime, was on the stand for a second day of questioning by Gotti's lawyer, Albert Krieger, at Gotti's murder-racketeering trial.

Gotti has been acquitted three times in six years on various charges. But this time, prosecutors have Gravano, the highest-ranking Mafia member ever to testify against Gotti.

Krieger said Gravano ordered Louis DiBono slain over a long-festering dispute over a tax debt of tens of thousands of dollars. He said Gravano bullied DiBono, his partner in a drywall business, into paying the tax bill and then had him murdered.

Gravano countered that DiBono "went crazy" with drug and alcohol problems, disappeared and let his business founder. He was killed, Gravano said, because he failed to show Gotti proper respect and didn't show up when summoned.

On an FBI surveillance tape secretly recorded in Gotti's hangout 10 months before DiBono was murdered, Gotti tells a top lieutenant, Frank "Frankie Locs" Locascio, he wants DiBono killed.

"Louie DiBono . . . He didn't rob nothin'. You know why he's dying? He's gonna die because he refused to come in when I called. He didn't do nothing else wrong," Gotti says according to a

government transcript of the tape.

Krieger also tried to show that Gravano, not Gotti, profited from the murder of Liborio "Louie" Milito, a longtime business and criminal associate of Gravano's.

After Milito's 1988 murder, Gravano quickly took over Milito's company, Gem Steel, and drained it of hundreds of thousands of dollars, Krieger said.