After bribe plot, Brooklyn judge orders anonymous jury in boxer Goran Gogic’s drug trafficking trial

Former heavyweight boxer Goran Gogic will face an anonymous jury in his drug trafficking trial, after three men were busted for trying to bribe a juror in his case last year, a Brooklyn judge has ruled.

Gogic, 47, who’s accused of playing a key role in a massive international cocaine trafficking ring, was originally set to go to trial last November — but on the eve of opening statements, Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Joan Azrack pumped the brakes when prosecutors revealed the $100,000 bribery plot.

Three men have since pleaded guilty. Gogic’s lawyer at the time, Joseph Corozzo Jr., the son of the late, reputed consigliere of the Gambino crime family, was booted from the case as the feds investigated whether he had any involvement in the bribery scheme.

Gogic now faces a new trial next year, with jury selection starting Jan. 25. On Wednesday, Azrack agreed with federal prosecutors’ request for an anonymous partially-sequestered jury after they described Gogic in court filings as “dangerous.”

“The defendant worked with and for dangerous and violent cartels and members of organized crime that operate out of the Balkans and have a global reach. Relatedly, the defendants prosecuted in the jury tampering case have ties to New York-based Italian and Albanian organized crime, which at least suggests an overlapping interest in this case by both Italian and Albanian organized crime,” prosecutors wrote in an Oct. 6 request for an anonymous jury.

“The defendant has no shortage of available individuals willing to commit criminal acts at his direction or on his behalf.”

Prosecutors also pointed to allegations of witness tampering and intimidation uncovered as the feds investigated the jury bribery plot.

Gogic had protected documents in his jail cell and he and his associates had tried to tamper with at least three witnesses, the feds said in court filings.

His defense attorneys countered that making the jury anonymous would prejudice its members against him and said the government didn’t link him to last year’s bribery plot. Three men, Valmir Krasniqi, Mustafa Fteja, and Afrim Kupa, were all charged and have subsequently pleaded guilty in that case.

“The government has not alleged that there was any connection between the jury tampering and Mr. Gogic. Mr. Gogic was not charged in (the bribery plot), nor has he been identified as someone that was involved in the offense conduct in that case,” Gogic’s lawyers, Alan Futerfas and Stephanie Guaba, wrote Tuesday. “The criminal complaint … describes a thorough and complex investigation into the jury tampering that included government surveillance, phone records, recorded conversations, witness testimony and law enforcement records. None allege Mr. Gogic’s involvement in the scheme.”

The jury bribery plot took shape last November, the weekend before opening statements. Fteja, who worked at Positano, a Bay Ridge restaurant prosecutors say has ties to organized crime figures, was acquainted with one of the jurors, while Kupa was a regular at the restaurant and Krasniqi worked there as a manager.

Fteja reached out to the juror several times on Krasniqi and Kupa’s behalf, eventually meeting the juror twice and offering to pay $50,000, then $100,000, for a not-guilty verdict.

Gogic, a Montenegrin citizen who remains held without bail in his case, is accused of being a “critical link” in a massive drug trafficking chain, coordinating between cocaine suppliers in Colombia, cargo ship crew members who transported tons of the drug and port workers in Europe and the U.S.

In the leadup to his arrest in 2022, authorities in the U.S. seized more than 1,400 kilos at the Port of New York and New Jersey on Feb. 27, 2019; more than 500 kilos at the Port of Philadelphia on March 18, 2019; and nearly 18,000 kilos at the Port of Philadelphia on June 19, 2019, worth more than $1 billion. It was described as one of the largest cocaine seizures in U.S. history.