'HE HAD AN AURA IN THE COURTROOM'

BOBBY SIMONE took the ghost of an ancient Roman lawyer with him to the opening in 1988 of one of a number of trials in which he represented notorious mob boss Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo.

"God, do I wish Cicero were here to help me with this case!" he cried to the jury, looking heavenward.

He told the jurors to heed the celebrated Roman's words that prejudice is an enemy of justice. "If there's no guilt, then prejudice must not be allowed to rear its ugly head," he paraphrased, in urging the jurors to put aside all they had heard about Scarfo in reaching their verdict.

It was pure Bobby Simone, the master showman who could charm juries with theatrics, humor and arguments that bordered on the outrageous, while impressing them at the same time with the obvious thoroughness of his preparation.

Robert F. Simone, a defense attorney who for 40 years represented some of Philadelphia's most colorful, not to mention sinister, characters, a man who didn't deny how fond he was of drinking, gambling, fast women and faster cars, died Tuesday night of complications of a blood disease.

He would have been 74 today.

Despite invoking Cicero, Si-mone lost that case. Scarfo and eight others were convicted of the 1986 murder of bookmaker Frank "Frankie Flowers" D'Alfonso. However, they later won a new trial in 1997 and were acquitted.

Simone and Scarfo had become good friends, to the extent that there were accusations that Simone had become the mob's consigliere, or lawyer, and was close to becoming a "made" member, which he vigorously denied.

Simone won acquittals for Scarfo in other cases, but he couldn't keep him from being convicted of federal racketeering charges in 1989 and being sentenced to 55 years in prison.

He also couldn't keep himself out of jail. In 1992, he was convicted of helping the mob and former city councilman Leland Beloff in a failed attempt to extort $1 million from developer Willard Rouse. In 1994, after losing his appeal in that case, he pleaded guilty to evading $160,000 in federal income taxes and was sentenced to four years in prison, and was disbarred.

He was released in 1997 and found work as a paralegal with the law firm of A. Charles Peruto Jr. He also found a publisher for his memoirs, "The Last Mouthpiece."

He was later reinstated to the bar and worked again as a defense attorney until he became ill.

Over the years, he represented chorus girl and nightclub owner Lillian Reis, porn star Linda Lovelace, civil-rights-leader-gone-bad Stanley Branche, union goons and a rogues' gallery of Philly organized gangsters.

"He was one of those amazing characters that make Philadelphia Philadelphia," said Lisa De-Paulo, who wrote a lengthy profile of Simone for Philadelphia magazine before his sentencing.

"He had the whole swagger, the whole schtick. He was unbelievably entertaining. There was a chivalry about him. It was an old-school Italian thing.

"I tell people he was the ultimate character, the ultimate Philadelphia character. What a loss to the city!"

Said lawyer Joseph Marrone, who worked on some cases with Simone: "He was one of the finest litigators in the area. He had an aura in the courtroom and outside that was second to none.

"He was highly respected in the legal community."

Former councilman Beloff, who was sentenced in 1987 to 10 years in prison in the attempted Rouse extortion, said Simone was the "last of the breed of big-city criminal lawyers."

"There are no more like him," Beloff said. "He could say more with a shrug than most lawyers could say in an hour. He was absolutely the best there was.

"His secret was he was well-prepared. He knew everything about a case, and he had a winning way with jurors."

A. Charles Peruto Sr., who worked with Simone on numerous cases over a 50-year period, described him as "a great guy, fun-loving and fun to be with.

"Maybe he got a little too close to the baddies, and indulged too much here and there, but he was a tremendous trial lawyer."

"Bobby Simone was one of a kind," said Daily News reporter Kitty Caparella. "Colorful, flawed, brilliant, the kind of person movies are made of. We became friends after he got out of jail. I admired how he struggled to resume his law career against the odds. He loved the law and talked about how he felt most comfortable in the courtroom. He valued his friends, regardless of which side of the law they were on."

Simone was born in Philadelphia to Italian immigrants, Joseph Simone Sr. and Angelina Amorosa. He graduated from Olney High School, attended Penn State briefly and switched to Temple University when he decided he wanted to be a lawyer.

After law school, he and Edward Reif formed a partnership. Reif was supposed to handle criminal cases and Simone the civil suits.

Then he met Lillian Reis, the beautiful and flamboyant chorus girl, and everything changed.

He represented her in a number of cases, but it was as her defense lawyer in her second trial in 1964 for masterminding the looting of the safe of the Pottsville coal baron, John B. Rich, that Bobby found his niche.

Rich's safe was burglarized in 1959. Although he went to his grave insisting that only about $4,000 in cash and jewelry had been taken, the late legendary Police Capt. Clarence Ferguson, head of a special investigation squad, discovered that nearly $500,000 had been stolen.

Lillian, by then the owner of a Center City nightclub called the Celebrity Room, was tried twice in Schuylkill County.

The first trial ended in a hung jury. The second, with Simone representing her, resulted in a conviction, but Simone was determined to keep her out of jail, and the verdict was overturned on appeal. Simone had another high-profile defendant in three federal cases - himself.

He was indicted by three federal grand juries on perjury and income-tax-evasion charges and was acquitted each time, acting as his own lawyer.

But the feds finally caught up with him. When asked what he had done with the money he had made in his career, much of which he had withheld from the government, he paraphrased gangster actor George Raft: "I spent it on women, whiskey and gambling - and the rest I squandered."

Simone was married and divorced twice. He is survived by a son, Scott; a daughter, Kimberly; a brother, Joseph Jr., and two grandchildren. He was predeceased by another brother, Ronald.

Services: Funeral Mass 11 a.m. Saturday at St. Monica's Church, 17th and Ritner streets. Friends may call at 7 p.m. tomorrow at the Baldi Funeral Home, 1331 S. Broad St., and Saturday morning at the church. *