06022008 - News Article - Fromm names Cantrell's "enforcer" in federal court - ROBERT CANTRELL

Fromm names Cantrell's "enforcer" in federal court
NWI Times
Jun 2, 2008
nwitimes.com/news/local/fromm-names-cantrell-s-enforcer-in-federal-court/article_c7eb760c-32f7-5c1c-896a-2a60ff8e7b79.html
HAMMOND | No matter how much clout they have, it can be difficult for fearsome political figures to intimidate without a little muscle on their side.

On Monday, Nancy Fromm revealed in Hammond federal court whom she thought Robert Cantrell relied on -- Gil Gutierrez.

Gutierrez was a name already woven into Cantrell's federal fraud trial in several ways, including being on the list of possible government witnesses.

Fromm testified that she once lost a government contract with Sheriff John Buncich for employing Gutierrez's wife, Margaret.

Gutierrez once worked as an employee in the court of Lake Superior Judge Julie Cantrell, who is Robert Cantrell's daughter, witnesses have said.

On Monday morning, Fromm and her former employee Rose Plesha said they were separately confronted by Gutierrez regarding Cantrell's suspicion that Fromm was "cheating" Cantrell out of his cut of her business' earnings.

"He was Bobby's enforcer," Fromm said of Gutierrez. "Bobby always said Gil was a killer. And now he's a person of interest in a murder."

Fromm was referring in her testimony to the 1992 waterfront killing of Guadalupe Castaneda. Gutierrez allegedly was the father of Castaneda's unborn child.

Lake County police named Gutierrez as a person of interest in the case in December 2007. The case is being investigated as a murder-for-hire based on statements from witnesses, Lake County police have said.

Court records indicate Gutierrez possesses signed hotel receipts proving he was out of town at the time of the slaying. But court affidavits state that the killing took place just three days before Gutierrez and Castaneda were supposed to have blood tests to establish paternity of their two children.

As the federal courtroom crowd gasped at Fromm's statement abut Gutierrez, defense attorney Kevin Milner redirected the questioning to what he has called Fromm's "gambling problem."