E-MAILED 4/2002
Gotti's New Pals: The ACLU.
By AL GUART, New York Post

April, 2002 -- Civil-liberties watchdogs say federal prison officials mocked the Constitution by taking the rare step of barring John Gotti's lawyers from meeting with him.

Gotti, 61, is in the final stages of head and neck cancer at A unknown Medical Center in Springfield, Mo., and for the past three weeks has been prevented from meeting with lawyers, who have quietly fought over his medical care and other prison-related matters.

That's because Bureau of Prisons officials deemed Gotti too sick to be moved to the attorney-client visiting room and nixed bedside visits with his lawyers after the Dapper Don underwent a tracheotomy that left him unable to speak.

"The prison has an obligation to make alternative accommodations for a prisoner who is physically unable to get to the attorney visiting area," said New York Civil Liberties Union chief Donna Lieberman.

"It makes a mockery of the right to counsel to require a bedridden inmate to walk to the attorney visiting ! room."

"It's unprecedented and unconstitutional," said longtime Gotti lawyer Bruce Cutler. "If Mr. Gotti is being treated differently than anyone else, I want to know why."

Gotti, serving a life term for murder and racketeering, has been held in solitary confinement for nearly 10 years.