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Suspect denies role in Nesconset lawyer's death

BY ANDREW STRICKLER | andrew.strickler@newsday.com

10:46 PM EST, November 18, 2008

Darnell Festus, 23, of Queens, was charged with second-degree murder in the Oct. 20 death of Nesconset attorney James DiMartino, homicide detectives said. Click here to read more (Handout photo)

The fourth person arrested in the slaying of a lawyer found fatally shot in a Commack restaurant parking lot was the one who pulled the trigger, authorities said Tuesday.

Darnell Festus, 23, of 190-05 Linden Blvd., St. Albans, pleaded not guilty to a second-degree murder charge in the Oct. 20 death of Nesconset attorney James DiMartino, prosecutors said.

DiMartino was lured to the lot with the promise of new business by his neighbor and business partner, and then was killed in a botched robbery involving multiple accomplices, Suffolk police said.

According to the criminal complaint, Festus told police: "I was robbing the guy and I shot him."

Festus was out on parole and had two prior felony convictions, both for criminal possession of a weapon, prosecutors said. None of the initial three defendants had criminal records, police said.

Festus was arrested at 1 p.m. Monday and arraigned Tuesday at First District Court in Central Islip. A grand jury was expected to hand down an indictment Thursday and a bail application will be made at his next court date Friday, said Festus' lawyer Jason Bassett of Central Islip.

"He's not guilty," Bassett said of Festus. "Somebody is setting him up."

Assistant District Attorney Nancy Clifford said Festus, like two other alleged accomplices, was recruited at the behest of Ronald Thornton, DiMartino's business partner. She did not say if Festus knew the other people charged in the murder, a 19-year-old exotic dancer and her boyfriend, who conspired with DiMartino's business partner to rob DiMartino during a concocted business meeting in the lot, Suffolk detectives said.

Festus did not know DiMartino but was to be paid for participating in the robbery, Clifford said.

"They were going to get proceeds," she said.

When DiMartino showed up on Oct. 20 and resisted the robbery, police said he was shot in the head in the parking lot of Sil La Joung on Jericho Turnpike.

Previously charged with second-degree murder were Thornton, 37, of 6 Margaret Ave., Nesconset; Donovan Raysor, 20, of 191-39 116th Ave., St. Albans; and Monique Randall, 19, of 223-28 105th Ave., Queens Village. Randall was arrested Saturday and the other two on Sunday; they all pleaded not guilty in First District Court in Central Islip Monday.

"Mr. Thornton had set up his business partner for a robbery in that parking lot," said Det. Lt. Jack Fitzpatrick, commander of the homicide squad. "That robbery, as we all know now, ended in Mr. DiMartino's death."

Fitzpatrick would not say if DiMartino's killers took any money.

Donald Dacey, 48, of Hauppauge, a lifelong friend of DiMartino's, condemned the crime.

"For someone to do that, you would hope it would not be over something that little," he said. "Nothing warrants killing somebody, of course. But just robbing somebody? I would assume there's more to it than that. That doesn't add up."

The victim's mother, Marion DiMartino, 71, said she was elated to hear of the arrests.

"I am thrilled," she said. "I hope they suffer forever because this was my baby."

Breaking into a sob, she said: "He was the most wonderful son a mother could have. And these animals killed him."

Still, she said the arrests brought her no closure.