10.11.04 -
Former Feds Now Work Other
Side
They spent 48 years combined battling mobsters, killers and swindlers, but two
former federal prosecutors finally have switched sides and set up a private
practice in Mineola.
Robert LaRusso and Joseph Conway left their federal jobs behind on Oct. 1, and
were open for business as LaRusso & Conway the following Monday.
"We have nobody to help us with the phones, the computers, get
files," said LaRusso, 58, sitting in the new LaRusso & Conway office.
"We decided not to hire any office staff until we see the direction of our
business."
Conway, 45, added, "It's flying without a net. There's a little
uncertainty. We don't know where our cases are going to come from."
But after just three days on the job, they got their very first client - a
personal-injury case stemming from a car wreck.
LaRusso and Conway bumped into each other in a Brooklyn courtroom in 1983.
LaRusso was there to handle the indictment of Gene Gotti, mob boss John Gotti's
brother, and Conway was working his way through school as a court clerk.
They became fast friends and later worked together in the Eastern District U.S.
attorney's office in Brooklyn and, for the last several years, in the Long
Island division in Central Islip.
"I always had the idea that some day I would open my own law practice and
build it up," said LaRusso, who had been a prosecutor for 34 years, 28 of
which were spent as an assistant U.S. attorney. "Fortunately, I'm building
it up with a very close friend."
LaRusso spent six years prosecuting Gene Gotti for racketeering and heroin
trafficking. After two mistrials - jurors were bribed for not-guilty verdicts -
LaRusso in 1989 won a guilty verdict against Gotti, who was shipped to prison
for 50 years.
Conway, who joined the Eastern District in 1990, said he's most proud of his
work prosecuting Dr. Michael Swango. To avoid the death penalty, Swango pleaded
guilty in 2000 to killing three Long Island patients by lethal injection.
"He probably killed more than 100 patients," Conway said. "He
started in St. Louis, went to Colorado, New York, Africa. Finally putting an
end to his reign of terror was pretty satisfying."
Conway, a self-proclaimed "sports nut," also prosecuted the case
against John Spano, the Dallas con artist who tried to buy the Islanders in
1997. Spano was convicted of bank and wire fraud, and sentenced to six years in
prison.
The men do not have any qualms about being on the other side in criminal cases.
"My 15-year-old son, Robert, asked me, 'Dad, how can you defend somebody
who's been accused of a crime after all those years of putting criminals in
jail?' " LaRusso said. "I said, 'Everyone's entitled to
representation.' "
And nothing beats the exhilaration of being on your own
"I thought it was going to be frightening, but I'm looking at it as a new
adventure," he said. "For the first time, I'm really my own
boss."
- Laura Williams: Daily News Staff
Writer. New York Daily News.
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