By Brian Zanzonico
Gousse has a history of convictions for violent behavior. Appearing in a Brooklyn courthouse earlier this month, he pushed a court officer, stole her handcuffs key, assaulted a Nassau County corrections officer and ultimately swallowed the key, Nassau County District Attorney Denis Dillon said.
"He's really ruthless," Elizabeth Gottlieb said. "I don't know what he thought he had to gain. He's ruthless and very, very disturbed."
According to Dillon, Gousse, 32, was brought from the Nassau County Jail to Brooklyn for a hearing in one of five robberies to which he has been linked on Long Island and in Brooklyn and Queens. At the courthouse, Gousse assaulted a city corrections officer and stole the handcuff key, Dillon said. When officers searched Gousse for the key, they could not find it, and sent Gousse for an X-ray to determine whether he swallowed it. The X-ray was negative, and Gousse was transported back to the Nassau County Jail in East Meadow for a more thorough search.
During the search, a metal object was discovered in Gousse's sneaker, Dillon said, and Gousse attacked a Nassau County corrections officer to retrieve the sneaker. Gousse was able to grab the sneaker, remove the key and swallow it, Dillon said. This time an X-ray showed the key in Gousse's stomach. As a result, the D.A.'s office, working with the Nassau County Sheriff's Department, the Nassau County Police Department and the Kings County District Attorney's Office, have filed additional charges, including second-degree robbery (a Class C felony), two counts of second-degree assault (a Class D felony), two counts of first-degree promoting prison contraband (a Class D felony) and tampering with physical evidence (a Class E felony).
Gousse's attorney, Martin Geduldig, did not return a call for comment.
"It's a little scary," Elizabeth Gottlieb said. "Why send one female officer? After that incident in Georgia, where the officer was attacked, it makes you wonder why they didn't have two people there. [Gousse is] really strong. It looked like he bulked up a bit the last time I saw him."
Gousse is currently in remand status and pending trial for the attempted robbery and murder of Gottlieb, 49, a father of three from Garden City South. Gottlieb was on his way home from HSBC Bank in Cedarhurst on Jan. 5 when he was stopped on Semton Boulevard, north of Fenworth Boulevard, at 7 p.m. by a man who at first appeared to be a police officer, driving an SUV with blue and white flashing police-style lights.
Gottlieb, an assistant bank manager, apparently resisted the phony cop's demands to be handcuffed, was pistol-whipped and then fatally shot as he fled from his car to a nearby home.
Investigators said the assailant apparently wanted the key to the Cedarhurst bank. Homicide detectives followed hundreds of leads in the case and, in conjunction with HSBC bank, offered a $27,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. The key break in the case came on Jan. 14, when a tipster familiar with the suspect told police that they might want to look into Gousse's background, detectives said.
"The waiting [for trial] is bothering me, because Halloween is almost here, then Thanksgiving, and soon it will be a year," Elizabeth Gottlieb said. "For me to move on, I'd like to see him go to trial. But I know these things take time."
Detectives said that Gousse has a lengthy history of committing armed robberies of store managers in Nassau County, Brooklyn and Queens while impersonating a police officer. Police said he has cased his victims for days, stalking them before pulling them over in an SUV using sirens and police lights, handcuffing them and bringing them back to their store or place of business, which he has then robbed.
In 1998, Gousse was arrested in Queens during a police impersonation and robbery, and was released from prison in March 2004. About a month after he was released from prison, he followed a night manager of the Waldbaums in the Bay Harbour Mall in North Lawrence to Cambria Heights, where he pulled her over with a siren and flashing lights, police said. He then handcuffed her and brought her back to the supermarket, where he forced her to open a safe, stealing more than $11,700, investigators said.
After he was released from his six-year prison term, Gousse pulled the same stunt about five times during a three-month period, detectives said.
Shortly after his alleged crime spree last year, Gousse was stopped for speeding in Amarillo, Texas, on Aug. 14, and inside his rented Ford Crown Victoria police found a siren, a phony police uniform and a 9mm handgun, officials said. He was arrested on felony charges, but they were dropped by a federal judge who reportedly ruled that police did not have enough cause to hold Gousse. Detective Sgt. Dennis Barry of the Nassau County Homicide Squad said that Gousse was on his way to Phoenix at the time to rob a drug dealer.
Elizabeth Gottlieb has been frustrated by the slow pace of the court proceedings, but said she will wait patiently as long as it takes to convict the man police said murdered her husband nearly 10 months ago. "I want to be there precisely because I want to be a thorn in his side," she said. "He's going to realize I'm there and feel the presence."
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