By Brian Zanzonico
As his accused killer's murder trial began in Nassau County Court in Mineola this week, Gottlieb's widow hopes she'll speak volumes to the man police say posed as a cop and shot and killed her husband by sitting in the front row every day.
"I want to be a thorn in his side," Elizabeth Gottlieb said of Reginald Gousse, 34. "Every day he comes into court I want him to see me. I'll be thinking of my husband and I may get sad, but I'll have to hold back."
Gottlieb, 49, was on his way home from work at HSBC Bank in Cedarhurst on Jan. 5, 2005, when he was stopped on Semton Boulevard, north of Fenworth Boulevard, in Franklin Square by a man who appeared to be a police officer, driving an SUV with blue and white flashing police-style lights, police said.
Gottlieb, an assistant bank manager and father of three, 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 crucial break in the case came on Jan. 14, 2005 when a tipster familiar with the suspect told police that they might want to look into Gousse's background, detectives said.
At Gousse's first court appearance after his arrest, he glared menacingly at Gottlieb's widow. As he was led past her, he turned to her and said, "If you think I did it, you will never find closure ... I'm not guilty." From that point, she said, she never missed a court date.
"You can't prepare," she said. "I want to be there and listen and be civil and not get unnerved. But once in there, it's a whole different ball game. I don't know how I'll react. I've thought about whether things will be presented that make me upset. "
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.
Nassau County Assistant District Attorney Fred Klein and Gousse's defense attorney, Martin Geduldig, argued at a recent pretrial hearing over whether testimony given by Gousse in a Queens police impersonation case would be admissible as evidence. Judge Jerald Carter said he would allow the testimony as evidence.
In 1998, Gousse was arrested in Queens during a police impersonation and robbery, and he was released from prison in March 2004. About a month later, 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, and stole more than $11,700, investigators said.
After he was released from his six-year prison term in 2004, Gousse pulled the same stunt about five times during a three-month period, detectives said.
Shortly after that alleged crime spree, Gousse was stopped for speeding in Amarillo, Texas, on Aug. 14, 2004, and inside his rented Ford Crown Victoria police found a siren, a phony police uniform and a 9 mm 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.
Gottlieb, who had grown frustrated with the slow pace of the proceedings, said she is expecting a lengthy, arduous trial.
"It'll be a long road," she said. "I've learned a lot about the legal process, as much as I could. I'm not one to sit back. I owe it to myself, I owe it to my family and I owe it to my husband."
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