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Two communities react to John White's sentence

BY JENNIFER BARRIOS AND MATTHEW CHAYES | jennifer.barrios@newsday.com
matthew.chayes@newsday.com

8:16 PM EDT, March 19, 2008

Outside the bagel shop and the ice-cream parlor, the market and the cul-de-sac, people in the communities surrounding the homes of the Whites and the Cicciaros warily expressed mixed emotions about John White's 2- to 4-year sentence Wednesday.

Trupti Akruwala, 53, lives at the end of a cul-de-sac a few houses down from the Whites. She said she knew John White as a friendly person, who once gave her advice on home improvement.

"If the judge has to punish him for whatever he did, it should be for as little as possible," Akruwala said. But, she added, "that was his mistake ... to bring the gun down."

"I think the sentence was about right," said one 11-year Miller Place resident. "I don't think it was too much or too little."

The resident, who did not give his name, said he thought a lot of residents in the community were too scared to speak out about the issue.

"There's not too many blacks in this community," he said. "And the whites on the whole probably think [the sentence] should be a little more."

Another neighbor of the Whites who also would not give his name, said he was "saddened" by the sentence for killing Daniel Cicciaro Jr.

"It's a tragedy for both families. Both families are destroyed by it. There's no winner," said the neighbor, who has lived on Independence Way in Miller Place for almost four years. "That ruling -- there will be no finality. He's still going to jail. He still feels he's innocent. And the family who lost their son, it would be completely no consolation for them."

Outside the White residence, where visitors' cars choked the driveway, two police vehicles sat idling yesterday, in response to comments made by Daniel Cicciaro Sr. after the sentencing that some viewed as a threat to the Whites' son, Aaron.

Meanwhile, in Selden, many of the same close friends and relatives who had cried at the sentencing hours earlier gathered inside the Cicciaro home, which bore a large sign reading "Dano," the nickname of the dead 17-year-old.

In the Cicciaros' Selden neighborhood, several residents said they could see both sides of the issue.

Olive Matthews, 66, said the White sentence "is extreme, because nobody knows" what they would "do if somebody comes after our kids.

"He was protecting his family, and they did walk up on his property," Matthews said. But she added, "I don't think he should have shot the kid."

George Corcoran, shopping at a market a few blocks from the Cicciaros' home, said the shooting remains a tragedy for both families -- "a tragedy that should never have happened."

Corcoran, 63, of Port Jefferson Station, said both parties were "partially at fault."

"It's not enough," he said of the sentence, "but it's too much."