A juror bribery probe into former heavyweight boxer Goran Gogic has uncovered a potential scheme to intimidate witnesses in his Brooklyn trial — and the feds are now investigating the fighter’s defense lawyer’s potential role, prosecutors said Friday.
Federal prosecutors Friday asked a Brooklyn judge to disqualify Gogic’s defense lawyers from the firm Rubestein & Corozo in his upcoming drug trafficking trial — after a number of witnesses and one witness’ daughter reported jarring encounters, and a search of Gogic’s jail cell uncovered sensitive documents only his lawyers were supposed to have, court filings show.
“Mr. Corozzo is a subject in the ongoing investigation into juror bribery and obstruction,” assistant U.S. Attorneys Tanya Hajjar and Emily Dean wrote in a letter to Judge Joan Azrack Friday.
Corozzo didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment.
Gogic, 46, who remains held without bail at MDC Brooklyn, was set to stand trial on charges in November that he played a key role in an operation that trafficked more than 20 tons of cocaine through U.S. ports.
A day before opening statements, though, the trial was thrown into chaos, when prosecutors said they’d learned of a plot to offer a $100,000 bribe to a juror.
An investigation followed, and according to Friday’s filing, prosecutors learned of Gogic had a photo of one cooperating witness’s then 15-year-old daughter in his jail cell, as well as sensitive documents from two separate meetings between authorities and another cooperator.
One cooperating witness — the one whose daughter’s photo was found in Gogic’s cell — said “that on three separate occasions, three different individuals he knew to be associated with the defendant or otherwise involved in narcotics trafficking attempted to contact him while (the witness) was incarcerated,” the feds wrote.
During one of those encounters, the person asked to talk to him about his involvement in the trail, the feds said.
Then, on Nov. 10, a week before the trial was supposed to start, someone associated with an Eastern European drug trafficking operation visited the witness’s former home, where his daughter now lives, asking her where her dad was.
She was so spooked she relocated, the feds allege.
Another witness in the trial was locked up in MDC Brooklyn when an inmate handed him a contraband cell phone in January 2024. On the screen was Gogic, who asked the witness to visit him on his floor, and started asking questions about the trial, the feds said.
The witness didn’t visit Gogic, and jail staff promptly moved him for his safety, the feds said.
A third witness, a Dutch citizen whose family lives in the Netherlands and whose cooperation was supposed to be a secret, was publicly named in an Amsterdam-based daily newspaper two days before trial. The article included a “stenciled description” of the witness that appeared to be based on a photo given to Gogic’s defense team, the feds allege.
Three men were arrested in the jury tampering plot, which was first reported by the Daily News. Two have since been indicted on obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice charges, while the third is engaged in plea negotiations, according to a court filing last month.
