NATION IN BRIEF : NEW YORK : Judge Disqualifies Attorneys for Gotti

The judge in the federal murder-racketeering case of John Gotti disqualified lawyers for the alleged New York City mob boss and two associates on grounds that they were either heard on or were discussed on secret FBI tapes. U.S. District Judge I. Leo Glasser granted a government motion to disqualify Gotti’s lawyer, Bruce Cutler, and fellow attorneys Gerald Shargel and John L. Pollok. The government did not accuse the lawyers of illegal acts but said that their voices or references to them on the tapes carried “the specter of improper conduct.” Glasser ruled last week that the tapes of conversations secretly recorded by federal agents in 1989 and 1990 at the Ravenite Social Club, Gotti’s hangout in the Little Italy section of Manhattan, could be used by prosecutors in the trial.