LI CRIME BRIEFS

UNIONDALE / Queens dad gets 20 years in strangling his ex

A Queens man who strangled the mother of his child and then left her body near an abandoned home in Uniondale will serve 20 years to life for his crime, a Nassau judge said Wednesday.

Marvon Jemmott, 37, of Rosedale, was days away from going to trial in the death of his ex-girlfriend, Jamaica Smith, when he opted to plead guilty in the case in March.

Jemmott's lawyer, Douglas Rankin, of Brooklyn, said a witness who had testified before the grand jury in the case, and was therefore immune to prosecution, had come forward days before the trial saying she had helped Jemmott commit the crime. Previously, the woman had testified that she had no involvement, Rankin said.

Jemmott pleaded guilty before Judge Meryl Berkowitz to second-degree murder.

Smith, 36, disappeared after dropping off her daughter at a school blocks from his home on the day before Thanksgiving in 2009, police said.

After strangling Smith, Jemmott drove her body from Queens to an abandoned home in Uniondale, prosecutors said.

Jemmott dumped the body at the side of the house, where it was discovered by a water-meter reader on Dec. 7, 2009. Jemmott was arrested the following day. -- ANN GIVENS

DIX HILLS / Jury told to continue deliberating in murder trial

For the second day in a row, a federal judge has ordered a jury to continue deliberating in the case of a Dix Hills gym owner accused of murdering three people.

Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert in Central Islip read the jurors in the case of Christian Tarantino what is known as an Allen charge, or a "dynamite charge."

The wording of the charge is designed to encourage jurors who say they are deadlocked to try to reach a verdict by continuing to deliberate and to listen to each other's opinions carefully and with respect.

On Tuesday, Seybert ordered the jurors to continue deliberating after they had sent out a note saying they had reached a verdict on two of the four counts against Tarantino but were deadlocked on two other counts. The jurors did not say which counts they had reached a decision on or what their verdicts were.

Seybert read the Allen charge Wednesday after the jurors sent out a note reading, "Will we be asked about convictions we are deadlocked on, if we have reached a verdict on others?"

Seybert first told the jurors that their deliberations would remain secret and that they will not be asked about the reasoning behind a deadlock.

Tarantino is accused of murdering a guard during a 1994 Muttontown armored-car robbery and then having two other men killed for fear they would inform on him.

-- ROBERT E. KESSLER