By Brian Zanzonico
She won't get her husband back, no matter how expeditious the process. James Gottlieb will miss his beloved boys growing into men and will never escort his little girl down the aisle. It's a concept that seemed unfathomable to Elizabeth Gottlieb before her husband, an assistant bank manager who would have turned 50 on July 16, was shot to death on a Franklin Square street by a man who police said pulled him over in a car with flashing lights, pretended to be a police officer, and tried to rob him before killing him. A court conference for Reginald Gousse, 31, was postponed July 18 and rescheduled for Aug. 16.
"I want to see him get more than life [in prison]," said Elizabeth Gottlieb, of Garden City South, last week. "If he's put in a place, somewhere deep and dark and never sees the light of day, that would be a start."
In May, a grand jury handed up a four-count indictment, including one count each of first- and second-degree murder, first-degree attempted robbery and criminal impersonation.
Which is nothing compared to the term Gottlieb said her family has been forced to serve. Everywhere she turns, there are reminders of James. His picture on the wall. In the eyes of their two sons, 19 and 17, and 9-year-old daughter. She has great memories, like family trips and Little League, but they are often offset by the image that is seared into her mind forever: the evening of Jan. 5.
"He was a loving father on his way home from work," she said. "There's no reason in the world for this to have been done to him."
Gottlieb was on his way home from HSBC Bank, at 125 Cedarhurst Ave. in Cedarhurst, where he had worked since last July, 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 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 was after the key to the Cedarhurst bank.
"He won't see graduations, marriage, the progression of life," said Gottlieb's heartbroken wife, who also works at a bank. "No more family vacations. I don't know what to expect in the future."
Since losing James, Elizabeth has assumed the role of both mother and father. James helped their eldest son, a sophomore at Quinnipiac College in Connecticut, find a school, and guided him through the tedious application process. Now she is beginning that search with her younger son.
"My husband wanted both our sons to go away to school, but the younger one wants to stay home and help," she said. "And he has. He does a lot of the things Jim used to do. He checks the water in the furnace, trims the bushes."
To cope with the grief, Gottlieb has been going to counseling with a crime victims support group. Members of the group have warned Gottlieb that she has a long, torturous court process ahead.
"I want the trial to happen, but not too fast," she said. "I want to make sure everything is done properly and he is put away for life. He planned and followed and figured he was going to get big bucks out of [robbing James]. He has ruined, spoiled people's lives."
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 then robbed.
In 1998, Gousse was arrested in Queens during a police impersonation and robbery, and was released from prison in March 2004. "At the time, he was charged with a laundry list of offenses," Detective Sgt. Dennis Barry of the Nassau County Homicide Squad said at a press conference following Gousse's arrest in February.
While more than one court will seek to prosecute Gousse, a spokesman for the Queens D.A. said Nassau County will get first crack at him because of the severity of the charges involved. Nassau County Assistant District Attorney Mary Biunno of the Major Offenses Bureau is handling the case.
About a month after Gousse was released from prison, he followed a night manager of the Waldbaum's 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.
Since he was released from his six-year prison term, Gousse pulled the same stunt about five times during a three-month period, detectives said. "This is an evil individual who preys on other people, because it's much easier than to earn a living," Barry said after Gousse's February arrest. "He has admitted his role in the robberies, but he denies shooting [Gottlieb]. 'It's not my method of operation,'" Barry quoted Gousse as saying following the suspect's arrest.
Nevertheless, Barry said, "We're confident he's the man."
Barry explained that all of the robberies fit the same pattern - with the exception of the Gottlieb case, in which the robber ended up killing his victim.
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 lead 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.
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. Barry said that Gousse was on his way to Phoenix at the time to rob a drug dealer.
Two days before the Gottlieb murder, Gousse bought a police scanner from a Radio Shack in Valley Stream, and on the day of the murder he rented a black 2004 Ford Expedition from Hertz at JFK Airport, Barry said. It was a two-day rental, but the Expedition was returned at 10 a.m. the day after the murder, with a day and a half left on the rental, Barry said.
Elizabeth Gottlieb recalled that at a post-arraignment hearing weeks after the arrest, Gousse stopped about three feet from her as he exited the courtroom. "He said, 'Not guilty, and if you think I did it you'll never find closure,'" she said. "I could see his ugly face. It bothered the heck out of me."
Gottlieb knows there is a chance the Aug. 16 court date will be adjourned, too. If it is postponed, she'll wait. She wants justice, no matter how long it takes.
Comments about this story? BZanzonico@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 240.
