Long Island

Crime

ny-linotablecrimes-sg

This article was originally published in Newsday on Aug. 30, 2002 
 Yet again, the conviction of one of the men found guilty of killing 13-year-old John Pius by stuffing rocks down his throat 23 years ago has been reversed. 
 The Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that within 90 days Thomas Ryan, 41, must get a fourth trial or be set free. If Ryan is tried again, it will be the eighth trial in the case. 
 "It's just terribly upsetting," said Timothy Mazzei, the former prosecutor who won Ryan's last conviction. "It's a travesty. These cases should have been over a long time ago." 
 Pius' parents, who now live in Florida, could not be reached for comment yesterday. Mazzei, now in private practice in Hauppauge, said when he spoke Wednesday with Barbara Pius, John's mother, she was so upset she could hardly talk. 
 In 1979, police said, Ryan, then 17, Robert Brensic, 17, Peter Quartararo, 15, and Michael Quartararo, 14, killed Pius near a Smithtown elementary school because they thought he would turn them in for stealing a minibike. The four were convicted based in part on confessions police say Peter Quartararo gave them soon after the crime. 
 But appellate courts later ruled the confessions were coerced by police and were inadmissible in court. 
 "It is the unreliable confession of Peter Quartararo, with its varying accusations against the other three boys, and the [district attorney's office's] insistence on attempting to introduce it ... that has caused the many reversals, mistrials, retrials ... that have occurred in the cases of these four accused," Judge Rosemary Pooler wrote for the three-judge panel that decided the case. 
 At Ryan's 1990 retrial, the appellate court said Suffolk County Court Judge Thomas Mallon erred when he allowed a detective to testify that he told other detectives to read Ryan his rights immediately after hearing from the detectives interrogating Peter Quartararo. 
 The jury did not hear that Quartararo had confessed, but the federal appellate court ruled the jury was left "with nothing to conclude other than that Peter had accused Ryan." 
 That is a violation of Ryan's constitutional right to confront his accuser, the court ruled. Because Quartararo was not called as a witness, Ryan's attorney had no way to challenge his accusation, the court said. 
 "The appeals bureau of our office is studying [Wednesday's] lengthy decision," said Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota. "Our options are open." They include appealing the case to the full Second Circuit or to the U.S. Supreme Court, or retrying Ryan, Spota said. 
 The Pius murder was the last case Spota handled during his first tenure with the district attorney's office. Then chief of the office's Major Offense bureau, Spota won the first convictions against the Quartararo brothers. Peter was never retried after his conviction was reversed; Michael is still in prison after being convicted at a second trial. 
 Another way to conclude the case is to reach a plea deal, according to attorneys close to the case. Brensic pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 1988 after his murder conviction was thrown out, and was paroled not long afterward. 
 "I have no idea whether the client would accept it," said Ryan's appellate attorney, Lawrence Kamin of Manhattan. "This is a case where a lot of people have suffered over a long time. I think it's time to just put this all behind us." 
 Ryan has spent more than 18 years in prison. 
 Kamin said how the case proceeds is in Spota's hands. 
 Mazzei, noting Spota's familiarity with the case, said he'll be comfortable with whatever decision Spota makes. 
 He said it would be difficult to retry the case 23 years after it happened. 
 "It was tough to retry in 1990, and that was after only 11 years," Mazzei said. 
 Even so, if it came to that, Mazzei said prosecutors still would be able to use statements Ryan made to his then-girlfriend. At the last trial, Anne Della Piana testified that Ryan told her, "You can't love someone that took someone else's life."

From the archives: Conviction in Pius case set aside

From the archives: Conviction in Pius case set Aside; Fourth trial possible for jailed defendant in 1979 teen slaying

From the archives: Conviction in Pius case set Aside

SEPTEMBER 1988 <a href="/topics/Martin_Tankleff">Martin Tankleff</a>, 17, is charged with murder after telling police he found his mother, Arlene, dead and his father, Seymour, bleeding profusely from a neck wound in their Belle Terre home. After being interrogated by police for hours, Tankleff confesses. 
JUNE 1990 Tankleff is convicted of two counts of second-degree murder after nine weeks of trial testimony and eight days of jury deliberation. 
OCTOBER 1990 Tankleff is sentenced to the maximum: 50 years to life in prison. 
AUGUST 2003 Glenn Harris gives Tankleff's lawyers a sworn statement saying he drove Joseph Creedon and <a href="/topics/Peter_Kent">Peter Kent</a> to the Tankleff house on the night of the slayings and that Creedon and <a href="/topics/Peter_Kent">Kent</a> came out of the house with blood on them. Other witnesses come forward in the following months to incriminate Creedon, Kent, and Seymour Tankleff's former business partner, Jerry Steuerman. 
JULY 2004 A <a href="/topics/Suffolk_County%2C_NY">Suffolk</a> County Court hearing begins to determine whether Tankleff deserves a new trial. 
MARCH 2006 Suffolk County Court Judge Stephen Braslow rejects Tankleff's motion for a new trial, saying he reached "the same conclusion that the jury reached ... and every state appellate court and federal court that has reviewed the case, and that is that Martin Tankleff is guilty of murdering his parents." 
APRIL 2006 Braslow rejects a second motion for a new trial based on testimony from new witnesses. 
MAY 2006 An appellate court in <a href="/topics/Brooklyn_Bridge%2C_NY">Brooklyn</a> agrees to hear Tankleff's appeal of Braslow's rejection of the bid for a new trial. 
JANUARY 2007 Tankleff's lawyers argue their case for an appeal. 
OCTOBER 2007 Defense team files another motion in an effort to clear Tankleff of his parents' murders, providing new evidence in an attempt to discredit the alibi of Kent, one of the men they say committed the crimes. 
DECEMBER 2007 Appellate Division orders new trial for Tankleff, citing newly discovered evidence presented by Tankleff's attorneys that was "of such character as to create a probability that had such evidence been received at the trial the verdict would have been more favorable to the defendant."

ny-lichro1222

Chronology of Martin Tankleff case

Martin Tankleff at trial

Originally published in Newsday on January 26, 2005 
Time and again during his three-month trial for the murder of Theodore Ammon, <a href="/topics/Daniel_Pelosi">Daniel Pelosi</a> recalled the loving bond he had forged with Ammon's two children as evidence that he had not romanced their mother, Generosa Ammon, solely for financial gain and could never have killed their father. 
Yesterday, Ammon's children stood inside a <a href="/topics/Riverhead%2C_NY">Riverhead</a> courtroom - for the first time since Pelosi, 42, was convicted of Ammon's murder last month - and told the former electrician from <a href="/topics/Manorville%2C_NY">Manorville</a> that they knew he had manipulated them, and that they hoped he would spend the rest of his life in jail. 
State Supreme Court Justice <a href="/topics/Robert_Doyle">Robert Doyle</a> agreed, and imposed the maximum sentence of 25 years to life in prison. 
"I loved you, Danny, I really did. I looked up to you like a father," Gregory Ammon, 14, said in a soft voice cracked by emotion. 
"You knew, Danny, what my sister and I were going through, and you still went on killing my father," Gregory continued. "I'm sorry I believed you, and I should have known better." 
Reading from her own letter, Alexa Ammon said: "Mr. Pelosi might have had a nice time for the past couple years spending my parents' money, but that is over now. And, I hope he rots away in prison because he deserves nothing better." 
Pelosi, however, did not back away from his assertions of innocence and spoke directly to Ammon's twins. 
"Greg and Alexa, I never lied to you guys," he said. "I never lied to you. And, I'm telling you to your face, I did not kill your father, and you know that." 
Wearing a dark brown suit, his hands cuffed behind him, Pelosi then suggested, as he had during the trial, that their mother was responsible for the murder. 
"You all know what it was like living with mom," said Pelosi, who plans to appeal the conviction. "We all know what we went through. We all know the truth here, and that truth will come out." 
In opting for the harshest sentence, <a href="/topics/Robert_Doyle">Doyle</a> described the calculated way in which Pelosi entered Generosa Ammon's life in 2000, with designs on making his way into her and her husband's multimillion-dollar bank accounts. 
Pelosi began dating Generosa Ammon as her 10-year marriage spiraled into a nasty divorce proceeding. In October 2001, Theodore Ammon was beaten to death inside a bedroom of his <a href="/topics/East_Hampton%2C_NY">East Hampton</a> estate. 
"The defendant's actions were brutal and cowardly," Assistant District Attorney Janet Albertson said yesterday. "Mr. Ammon was asleep in his bed when he was set upon by the defendant." 
Pelosi married Generosa Ammon three months after the murder, and she died of <a href="/topics/Breast_Cancer">breast cancer</a> in August 2003. Before her death, she and Pelosi signed a $2-million postnuptial agreement. It cut Pelosi out of her $46-million estate but provided sufficient funds for his defense. Pelosi was indicted in Ammon's murder the following March. 
"I believe the evidence clearly established, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant's motive to commit this murder was greed when he feared that the flow of money from Ted Ammon was coming to an end," <a href="/topics/Robert_Doyle">Doyle</a> said. 
Alexa Ammon said: "He stole our childhood and innocence, forcing us to deal with things most people don't have to deal with in their lifetime. For Mr. Pelosi, it was always about the money. Just because his life wasn't good enough, he had to come and steal ours away." 
In pressing for the maximum sentence, Albertson said Pelosi continued spending Ammon's money until the day he was convicted. 
Theodore Ammon's sister, Sandi Williams, of Huntsville, Ala., invoked the Bible as she talked about Pelosi's overpowering greed. "Scripture states that the love of money is the root of all evil," Williams said. "That is surely true for you. You loved money so much that you took the life of my beloved brother, these children's father, so that you could have more of it." 
Pelosi will remain in the <a href="/topics/Suffolk_County%2C_NY">Suffolk</a> County jail as he faces a bevy of related and unrelated criminal charges. 
Pelosi has since withdrawn his claim on Generosa Ammon's estate, which she left to her children. 
As relatives and spectators spilled into the hallway after the sentencing, Albertson said that perhaps now that the last piece of the trial was complete, people would stop paying attention to everything Pelosi said. 
"I think it's time that we slam the door on Danny Pelosi," she said, "and stop listening to him." 
He stole our childhood and innocence, forcing us to deal with things most people don't have to deal with in their lifetime. For Mr. Pelosi, it was always about the money. Just because his life wasn't good enough, he had to come and steal ours away.' - Alexa Ammon, victim's daughter 
Scripture states that the love of money is the root of all evil. That is surely true for you. - Sandi Williams, victim's sister 
Greg and Alexa, I never lied to you guys ... I'm telling you to your face, I did not kill your father ... I was a victim of the media. I've been a victim of circumstances. - <a href="/topics/Daniel_Pelosi">Daniel Pelosi</a>, sentenced for killing Theodore AmmonI loved you, Danny, I really did. 
I looked up to you like a father. I've lost mostly every important aspect of my life. You knew, Danny, what my sister and I were going through, and you still went on killing my father. - Gregory Ammon, victim's son

ny-tedammon

Pelosi gets 25 to life in murder of Ted Ammon

Ted Ammon - pic

Originally published in Newsday on June 20, 2003. 
After 24 years, eight trials and five successful appeals, the prosecution of the four boys who took part in the killing of 13-year-old John Pius finally ended yesterday in a Riverhead courtroom. 
When <a href="/topics/Thomas_Ryan">Thomas Ryan</a>, 42, of Holbrook, pleaded guilty to second-degree attempted manslaughter, he avoided what would have been his fourth trial on murder charges. And because he waived his right to appeal, the case finally will be closed. 
"It has been a long road to a very tragic case," said District Attorney <a href="/topics/Thomas_Spota">Thomas Spota</a>, the original prosecutor. "We have to bring finality to the case." 
Of the other defendants, only Michael Quartararo, 38, is still serving prison time, and it's the most minimal sort. He was sentenced as a juvenile to 9 years to life, but he spends only two nights a week at the Lincoln Correctional Facility, a minimum security prison on the Upper West Side. The rest of the time he is out on work release, one of only two convicted murderers participating in the program. 
His brother, Peter Quartararo, 39, was never retried after his murder conviction was reversed in 1989. Robert Brensic, 41, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 1988 after his murder conviction was reversed and now lives in <a href="/topics/Virginia">Virginia</a>. 
<a href="/topics/Thomas_Ryan">Ryan</a>, who has served 18 years in prison, was promised a sentence of 5 to 15 years. He is now free on $75,000 bail. 
Although the case is now closed, the victim's mother, Barbara Pius, said in a phone interview from her <a href="/topics/Florida">Florida</a> home that there will be no such thing as closure for her. 
"It's been ... horrible years," said Pius, who lost her only child. "It only gets worse. It can't go away. It's always there in your heart." 
The killing of John Pius was one of the most notorious murders on Long Island. The four defendants wanted to silence him because they thought he might tell on them for stealing a minibike frame. During questioning yesterday by Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Janet Albertson, <a href="/topics/Thomas_Ryan">Ryan</a> said that on the evening of April 20, 1979, he drove the others to Dogwood Elementary School in Smithtown to look for Pius. 
He let them out and joined them later, he said. By the time he got there, Pius was motionless. The medical examiner later said the boy died a slow, agonizing death after having rocks crammed down his throat. 
Ryan said he helped move and hide the body, which was found the next day. 
"I hope he suffers in his mind," Barbara Pius said. "I wish all of them wake up every day and visualize my son and what they did to him." 
Getting murder convictions to hold up in the case proved difficult. Each of the original murder convictions was struck down, largely because appellate courts ruled that juries should not have heard about a confession Peter Quartararo gave to police. Courts have ruled police obtained it improperly and that it was inadmissible hearsay when used against co-defendants. Allusions to that confession - including in Ryan's most recent conviction - also were improper, courts ruled. Convictions from two of Ryan's trials on the charges were overturned and his last trial ended in a mistrial. 
For Barbara Pius, the constant retrials were torture. Each reversed conviction dredged up the murder, she said. 
"It's devastating," she said. 
<a href="/topics/Thomas_Spota">Spota</a> watched Ryan's plea from the second row. 
"I came to watch something that I started a long time ago," <a href="/topics/Thomas_Spota">Spota</a> said, glancing at a still youthful-looking Ryan. "He's put on some weight," he added, remarking on the passage of years. 
In return for Ryan's plea and waiver of appeal, Albertson said the district attorney's office would not compel him to testify about the killing in any future legal proceeding. 
Afterward, Spota and defense attorney Charles Hochbaum of Garden City said they were satisfied with the result. 
"I always felt he was the least culpable," Spota said, noting that Ryan served more time in prison than the others. 
"It was hard for Mr. Ryan," Hochbaum said. "I think it was a difficult step for him." 
Ryan, who is working in construction, left court without commenting. Acting State Supreme Court Justice <a href="/topics/Michael_Mullen">Michael Mullen</a> will impose the sentence in September. Ryan will surrender then and will be in prison only as long as it takes for the state prison system to process his release papers. 
Barbara Pius said no earthly punishment will be enough. 
"I hope he never has any peace for the rest of his life," she said. "If he doesn't get what he deserves in this life, he surely will in the next life."

ny-johnpius

Guilty plea ends odyssey that began with boy's 1979 killing

Originally published in Newsday on June 25, 1997 
Facing the man he said abducted him and held him for ransom 23 years ago, <a href="/topics/Kings_Point%2C_NY">Kings Point</a> businessman Jack Teich spoke out for the first time yesterday about his ordeal and the pain it caused him and his family. 
"You killed me for seven days, not in body but in spirit and feelings," Teich told Richard Warren Williams. "You made me helpless. You made me hate. But fortunately, it gave me the appreciation of life itself and to be free, and love and be close to my family. You can't threaten me anymore, Mr. Williams. You gave me enough pain and suffering over the last 20 years." 
Williams, 64, standing before a judge in <a href="/topics/Nassau_County%2C_NY">Nassau</a> County Court in <a href="/topics/Mineola%2C_NY">Mineola</a>, smiled several times during Teich's 30-minute delivery but remained silent when he was offered a chance to speak. 
As part of a plea-bargain agreement, Judge Frank Gulotta Jr. then sentenced Williams to 6 2/3 to 20 years in prison - less than the 20 years and two months he already had spent behind bars for the $750,000 kidnaping in 1974. Williams walked out of court a free man, refusing to speak to reporters. 
Williams, who insists he is innocent, was arrested in 1976, convicted in 1978 and sentenced to 25 years to life for kidnaping, grand larceny and conspiracy. His conviction was overturned in 1994 by an appeals court that found that black prospective jurors had been improperly dismissed. 
Williams, who was released from jail on $100,000 bail last October, pleaded guilty to reduced kidnaping and conspiracy charges last month. "He has not admitted to anything, but rather has agreed to . . . enter the plea for health and other personal reasons," his attorney, Thomas Liotti, told the judge yesterday. 
Liotti told reporters that Williams, described by prosecutors at his trial as a strident black militant, had been framed by <a href="/topics/Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation">FBI</a> agents who Liotti charged planted $38,000 of the ransom money in Williams' motor home before he was arrested in <a href="/topics/California">California</a>. The rest of the money was never recovered. 
"The anguish, cruelty and racism that this case has spawned do not end," Liotti said in court. "They linger today, filling this courtroom and spilling out of it with uncertainties, questions and accusations which will never end, even if there were a trial here and irrespective of its outcome." 
Williams, then a <a href="/topics/California">California</a> real estate broker, was arrested in <a href="/topics/California">California</a> two years after the kidnaping after detectives linked him to another suspect who had worked for Teich's company for 17 years. Charges against the second suspect were dismissed for lack of evidence. 
Though he never saw his kidnapers, Teich, 57, who resumed running his <a href="/topics/Brooklyn_Bridge%2C_NY">Brooklyn</a> steel company after the ransom was paid and he was released, said he had no question about Williams' guilt. 
Standing at a podium as friends and family looked on, Teich recalled how he was grabbed by two masked men in his driveway and held, handcuffed and chained in a closet, in a <a href="/topics/Bronx%2C_NY">Bronx</a> apartment. He also played three tape recordings introduced at Williams' trial during which a man identified by police as Williams demanded $750,000 for Teich's safe return. 
"At gunpoint, you forced me into your car, along with an accomplice who had a shotgun," Teich said, looking at Williams. "You had a pistol, remember, Mr. Williams?" 
"You blindfolded me, you handcuffed me, you covered me with a blanket and drove me to the <a href="/topics/Bronx%2C_NY">Bronx</a>," he continued. "You put me in a closet and chained my legs to one side of the closet and my hands to the other side, like an animal, for a week. I did not know whether I was going to live or die." 
In playing the tapes, Teich recalled that he and other trial witnesses had identified the caller as being Williams. "You will remember that tape, Mr. Williams. This voice is yours." 
"You made my wife and family suffer, waiting to see if I were alive or dead," he said. Teich said he, his wife and their daughter and two sons all had suffered stress-related illnesses "because of this crime and your actions." 
"However, with great hardship, we managed to overcome the scars of what you did, and we are stronger today," he told Williams. 
Teich recalled that the ransom money was left in a locker at Penn Station. He said that <a href="/topics/Nassau_County%2C_NY">Nassau</a> detectives and <a href="/topics/Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation">FBI</a> agents saw Williams pick up the money and flee on a subway train, eluding authorities. 
"You then made my family wait over six hours in agony and one of your accomplices lectured, threatened me about speaking or telling anything to authorities or you would come back and kill our family," said Teich. "You then dumped me like a dead animal on a secluded road near <a href="/topics/John_F._Kennedy_International_Airport">Kennedy Airport</a>." 
"You took what did not belong to you," said Teich. "You terrorized my family and you have not taken any responsibility for your actions. There is no remorse here today. You have not given up your accomplices in this crime, you have not returned any of the money . . . You actually feel good about what you've done." 
Teich said he planned to pursue a $2-million civil court judgment he obtained against Williams, based on the $712,000 of ranson that was never recovered and accumulated interest. "Any money you have hidden, any assets or property you may have acquired, any job you may take, any investment you have made, any accomplices who are holding my money for you, we'll be there," he told Williams. 
"This was an especially heinous crime which I'm sure has left lasting scars on the victim and his family," Judge Gulotta said. "Both sides have suffered and continue to suffer as a result of something that occurred over 20 years ago. The district attorney's office, defense attorney and the court felt it was time to bring closure to this matter rather than have to undergo a prolonged trial where all the wounds would be reopened." 
Liotti said that Williams, who underwent heart bypass surgery while in prison and who has <a href="/topics/Diabetes">diabetes</a>, plans to live in Westchester with his wife, Pat. "He wants to spend time with his family and try to salvage what is left of his life," said Liotti.

ny-jackteich

Kidnap victim Jack Teich talks of '74 ordeal

Originally published in Newsday on March 23, 1995 
After 15 months, two weeks and one day, <a href="/topics/Colin_Ferguson">Colin</a> <a href="/topics/Colin_Ferguson">Ferguson</a> was still objecting yesterday as he was led off to prison for the rest of his life. 
Victims applauded and sobbed with relief as the convicted <a href="/topics/Long_Island_Rail_Road">Long Island Rail Road</a> gunmanwas ordered to spend 315 2/3 years to life behind bars for shooting to death six passengers and wounding 19 others in a crime that horrified the nation. 
Telling <a href="/topics/Colin_Ferguson">Ferguson</a> it was too bad that <a href="/topics/New_York%2C_NY">New York</a>'s newly reinstated death penalty could not be applied to him, <a href="/topics/Nassau_County%2C_NY">Nassau</a> County Court Judge Donald E. Belfi sentenced the 37-year-old native of <a href="/topics/Jamaica%2C_NY">Jamaica</a> to the maximum possible. 
"In my 21 years as a judge, I have never presided over a trial with a more selfish and self-centered defendant than you. The vicious crimes you committed on December 7, 1993 were the acts of a coward," Belfi said, urging legislators to change the state law that effectively caps Ferguson's sentence at 200 years to life. 
Ferguson, convicted Feb. 17, reacted not at all. 
As he did throughout the month-long trial - during which 15 eyewitnesses identified him as the shooter - Ferguson maintained his innocence yesterday. He continued to act as his own lawyer, tried to delay the proceeding and complained about racism, the media and his treatment at the jail. And as he left, he told the judge where he could find Ferguson's appeal papers. 
He showed not a drop of remorse, which didn't surprise Arlene Locicero, the mother of slain passenger Amy Federici of <a href="/topics/Mineola%2C_NY">Mineola</a>. 
"You are doomed. You are unable to break free of your sins . . . You call evil good and you call good evil. You turn darkness into light and light into darkness," Locicero said. "You think you are wise. You think you are clever." 
Survivor Lisa Combatti of <a href="/topics/Garden_City%2C_NY">Garden City</a>, who was nearly eight months pregnant when she was shot, told the court, "I often reflect on how lucky I was to have survived, then my emotions turn to anger because this was not an accident but a deliberate act of violence." 
Marlene Francois of <a href="/topics/Westbury%2C_NY">Westbury</a> broke down in tears, before composing herself and telling Ferguson, "On December 7, you almost killed me. On March 23, 1995, you continue to cause me pain because you refuse to accept responsibility." Ferguson bowed his head and wouldn't look at her. 
But in an hour-long rebuttal of statements victims made yesterday and Tuesday, he took issue with everyone except Carolyn McCarthy, of whom he said, "she is a favorite of mine." 
Ferguson appeared to praise McCarthy's lack of bitterness despite the fact that her husband, Dennis, was killed and only son Kevin severely wounded. But the McCarthys and the other victims and relatives had already walked out of the courtroom in disgust over his statement. 
"We didn't have to sit there and listen to it . . . we don't need this anymore," she said later. "Thank God it's over." 
Ferguson failed to see why uninjured passengers who did not testify at trial were allowed to give statements. He objected to the racial overtones of being called an animal by some survivors. He was offended that many victims didn't agree with his constitutional right to represent himself. 
After being declared competent to stand trial, Ferguson fired defense attorneys <a href="/topics/William_Kunstler">William Kunstler</a> and Ronald Kuby for mounting an insanity defense without his consent. Ferguson then proceeded to represent himself in one of the strangest trials in <a href="/topics/Long_Island%2C_NY">Long Island</a> history, cross-examining the very people he shot and infuriating many who believed he was crazy. 
Yesterday, Belfi said he had no regrets about his ruling, which was based on his own questioning of Ferguson and on psychiatric testimony during a competency hearing. "I did everything with a view toward not having the case reversed," Belfi said after the sentencing. 
"You don't kill six people and wound 19 others unless there is some mental or personality disorder but it did not rise to the level in my opinion to find him incompetent." 
"I do not need to say in fact that I am remorseful to the point where I am confessing guilt. That is not the case," Ferguson said. 
"As much as I am hated in <a href="/topics/Nassau_County%2C_NY">Nassau</a> County and in America, I believe there are persons that are strengthened by me and my stand through this difficult process," he said 
He drew a few incredulous stares from front-row court buffs when he added, "To say that I am an evil person has to be addressed to the extent that I am not an evil person and . . . based on my performance in this courtroom . . . I'm suggesting I'm one of the safest persons to live around." 
Finally, Belfi gave Ferguson a last opportunity to speak before he handed down the sentence. 
"I hope that somewhere down the road I will be forgotten," Ferguson said. " . . . That I just be back to the life that I lived before I came to jail. And that is a quiet life, unknown to the world. I will be satisfied with that. I will do my time on earth and then I will go." 
Victims like Mi Won Kim, sister of slain passenger Mi Kyung Kim of <a href="/topics/New_Hyde_Park%2C_NY">New Hyde Park</a>, were nonplussed, choosing instead to focus on the positive. "Under the worst of circumstances, I have met the best of people. With a support group like this, you can't go wrong." 
A beaming prosecutor looked incredilbly relieved. "I'm very, very happy it's over," said Assistant District Attorney George Peck. "He's a coward. He's nothing without his gun." 
 Excerpts from the Hearing 
<a href="/topics/Colin_Ferguson">Colin Ferguson</a>, pre-sentencing statement I hope that somewhere down the road I will be forgotten and at this point I feel I should make a special request to the media that as of this point no further coverage of me be made. And that I be just back to the life that I lived before I came to jail. And that is a quiet life, unknown to the world. I will be satisfied with that. I will do my time on earth and then I will go. It is a difficult place but I will continue.And when I leave here I know I first have to go back to the Nassau County jail and I will meet hostility. But I have prayed and I will continue to. And thus far, God has been good to me. And I'm hopeful he will continue. I have nothing else to say. 
Arlene Locicero, mother of murder victim Amy Federici Clearly, Amy was not made for the present, earthly life. Neither are you, <a href="/topics/Colin_Ferguson">Colin Ferguson</a>, made for an eternity on earth. Your eternal destiny lies before you. Where will you live forever? 
Lisa Combatti, victim I consider myself extremely lucky for having survived along with my unborn child. I remember hearing you Colin Ferguson shooting your way up the aisle. I thought that my life was over. And that I would never have the child I wanted so much. Time has passed and we are trying to go on with our lives. I cherish the quiet times I have with my daughter, and while I rock her asleep, I think about how innocent she is and the ways in which I can protect her. And the world we live in today. 
Marlene Francois, victim For several months after you shot me, I had to depend on others. I could not go to work. My mother, you made her ill, she fell sick, she was unable to work. But yet she has to be strong for me. My family, like the families of the other victims, we worked so hard to provide a decent living for our families. And yet you chose to come into our lives, to take that away from us. We did not need your input, Mr. Ferguson, to make us see how hard our lives were already.

ny-colinferguson

Protesting to the end, LIRR killer sentenced to 315 2/3 years

Originally published in Newsday on Nov. 29, 1994. 
 The gun was exactly where Peter Sylvester said it would be - stashed in the hallway ceiling of the <a href="/topics/Nesconset%2C_NY">Nesconset</a> home he shared with his widowed mother and grandmother, police said. 
 And Suffolk County ballistics experts had matched the hyper-powered deer rifle, complete with a bipod and a scope, to bullets recovered from the first and third Suffolk sniper shootings. 
 The match of the 35-cal. Remington Whelan rifle, one of three guns stolen in a June gunshop burglary, capped the most massive manhunt in the county's history. At its peak, 200 uniformed officers fanned out along the North Shore to prevent the sniper from striking a fourth time and to gather as many leads as they could to feed to the 100 detectives working the case. 
 "Over 4,100 people were interviewed by detectives knocking on 2,600 doors to develop thousands of leads," said Police Commissioner Peter S. Cosgrove at a news conference yesterday. "These efforts resulted in charges being prepared against Peter Sylvester." 
 Sylvester admitted to police that he shot his three victims in random attacks in <a href="/topics/Commack%2C_NY">Commack</a> and <a href="/topics/Stony_Brook%2C_NY">Stony Brook</a>. He also confessed to a house burglary in <a href="/topics/Nesconset%2C_NY">Nesconset</a> in which a 15-year-old girl was sodomized and raped, Cosgrove said. 
 "Sylvester has confessed to the shootings and to the rape," said Cosgrove at the news conference. 
 "He was forthright and relatively open to investigators," said Det. Lt. John Gierasch, commander of Suffolk's homicide squad, which cracked the case. 
 The investigative trail began with information from parole officials about Sylvester's history with weapons, police said. The former owner of the rifle and experts in the Suffolk County Crime Lab provided the crucial final pieces. 
 District Attorney James M. Catterson Jr. said the case would be presented to the grand jury in three weeks. Possible charges are murder, attempted murder, felony assault, criminal possession of a weapon and criminal use of a firearm. 
 "Certainly before the first of the year," he said. "We're not under the gun to present the case within five days. You can present a healthy package." 
 Sylvester, 24, told police he knew none of his victims and shot them to camouflage a murder he planned. Gierasch said Sylvester told investigators the name of the intended victim, but Gierasch didn't make it public. He did say it was not a crime for profit and the victim was not a family member. Investigators said Sylvester is not a suspect in a pair of <a href="/topics/Nassau_County%2C_NY">Nassau</a> snipings. He has been in prison since his arrest in August on weapons and parole violation charges. 
 The sniper case began to unfold June 7, when Eastern Taxidermy in <a href="/topics/Farmingville%2C_NY">Farmingville</a> was burglarized and three guns stolen - a 410 shotgun, a .356-cal. Remington rifle and a .35-cal. Remington Whelan. 
 Seven weeks later, on July 22, around 9:30 p.m., Sylvester drove near the North Shore Restaurant on <a href="/topics/Jericho%2C_NY">Jericho</a> Turnpike and took up his position across the street, police said. He spread out the bipod on the Whelan, lay down on the ground and took aim at a man sitting in a window booth eating dinner with his wife. Sylvester fired once, got up and gathered the gun. He then got in his car, a 1994 Firebird, and drove off. The bullet killed Steven Chaifetz, an accountant from <a href="/topics/Dix_Hills%2C_NY">Dix Hills</a>, hitting him in the chest. 
 Three days later, police said, Sylvester took up a similar position across from the Amoco gas station. He again fired one shot, this time at Ali Gocmez, the attendent. The bullet shattered the safety glass but missed Gocmez. 
 Sylvester's name first surfaced at the end of July, when local officers from the State Division of Parole called homicide detectives to advise them of his record and his recent release. 
 "He's been spoken of as being obsessed with weapons," said Gierasch. "Virtually every case we've linked him to has been weapons-related." 
 Up until that time, Sylvester had no violent crime in his past, police said. 
 Investigators said Sylvester spent the early-morning hours of an August day burglarizing homes in the <a href="/topics/Nesconset%2C_NY">Nesconset</a> area. His tries at two houses failed. Then he came upon the third, in which he found a 15-year-old girl sleeping as he rummaged through the house for valuables. 
 On Aug. 3, the day after the rape, Sylvester once again took up a position across from a business open at night, this time picking the <a href="/topics/Burger_King">Burger King</a> on <a href="/topics//Nesconset,_NY">Nesconset</a> Highway in <a href="/topics/Stony_Brook%2C_NY">Stony Brook</a>, police said. He fired once as Kathryn Spatafora cleaned tables near the window, critically wounding her. Again, he left after firing the Remington Whelan. But this time, someone spotted his car and phoned the tip in to police. 
 Days later, the police recovered one of the weapons stolen in the June burglary in the house of a man being committed to a psychiatric hospital. The man later told investigators he bought the gun from Sylvester, police said. 
 In mid-August, Sylvester rose to the top of the short list of sniper suspects. 
 "We really focused on him, and we determined he was violating a number of parole conditions," said Gierasch. "But we lacked sufficient information to go forward on the sniper matters. The ballistic linkage and other information all pointed to him." 
 Armed with a search warrant, homicide Dets. Robert Henn and Vincent Daly arrested Sylvester Aug. 25 as he drove to work. Tucked in his back pocket, they found a 9mm handgun and a loaded clip. He was charged with third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, and pleaded guilty. He denied any link to the snipings. 
 Still searching for the murder weapon, detectives waited two months for their next big break - the previous owner of the Remington Whelan, the only one of the three guns investigators had yet to recover. 
 He took investigators high on a mountain in upstate Roscoe, where they recovered bullets that had been fired by him into a tree in the past. When they took them back to the Suffolk County crime lab, they found that those bullets matched the ones recovered from the sniper scenes. 
 They still had no weapon, but they had enough information to go back to Sylvester, who later told police where the gun was.

ny-petersylvester

How police tracked the Suffolk County sniper suspect

This article was originally published in Newsday on July 27, 1994 
 Before being sentenced by a judge yesterday to 15 years to life in prison, John Esposito bowed his head, fighting back tears, as the hurt of the 11-year-old girl he held in a dungeon for 16 days resonated through a <a href="/topics/Suffolk_County%2C_NY">Suffolk</a> County courtroom. 
 "He made me feel dirty," sixth-grader Katie Beers said in a statement prepared with her therapist and read into the record by a prosecutor yesterday. 
 "I didn't know what he was going to do to me," Assistant District Attorney Eileen Powers continued, reading the words Katie used to describe her nightmarish captivity. "Even though now I'm safe I still worry all the time. I worry about being taken away. I worry that someone might hurt me." 
 Esposito, a slight, 45-year-old <a href="/topics/Bay_Shore%2C_NY">Bay Shore</a> contractor, then lost his composure, breaking into sobs, as he made a rambling apology, explaining to the court that "in my own strange way . . . I believed in my mind that I was in some way going to help Katie Beers." When Esposito kidnaped the girl on Dec. 28, 1992, and held her in a subterranean vault he built under his home, she was living in a household where she was saddled with adult chores and where her godmother's husband was subjecting her to sexual abuse. 
 Yesterday, as Esposito stood before <a href="/topics/Suffolk_County%2C_NY">Suffolk</a> County Court Judge Joel Lefkowitz in <a href="/topics/Riverhead%2C_NY">Riverhead</a>, his wrists were handcuffed behind his back and he read as his attorney turned the pages of a four-page typed statement. 
 "I am not the monster that people think I am," Esposito read in a soft, childlike voice. "My only hope is that someday Katie will find it in her heart to forgive me, and that the real John Esposito is someone who really loved and truly cared about her." 
 But the judge made it clear yesterday that the only reason he was limiting Esposito's sentence to 15 years to life in state prison was because Esposito had reached a plea agreement with <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> District Attorney James M. Catterson Jr. to spare the young victim from testifying. Esposito could have faced 25 years to life, but now he only needs to serve another 13 1/2 years in order to be eligible for parole. 
 The girl, who signed her statement "Katherine Katie Marie Beers," did testify in an unrelated sexual abuse trial earlier this month against Salvatore Inghilleri, the husband of her godmother. A jury took little more than an hour to find him guilty. He will be sentenced Aug. 9. 
 Under a plea bargain, Esposito pleaded guilty on June 16 to first-degree kidnaping, the top count in a grand jury indictment. Charges that alleged he also sexually abused the girl and made false statements to police detectives investigating her whereabouts were dropped. 
 In sentencing Esposito yesterday, Lefkowitz noted that a probation report found he "is a classic case of a person with arrested development." 
 "Katherine Beers was forced to endure the horror of 16 days of underground captivity, at times in chains and under sexual assault, never knowing if her ordeal would end," the judge read. "She observed her birthday under those conditions, alone and undoubtedly afraid. The defendant's behavior was premeditated, selfish and outrageous. He richly deserves the punitive sentence mandated by his conviction." 
 The probation report also makes many observations about Esposito's life and personality that lend clarity to his motivation in abducting Katie. "He had a lifelong inability to relate in appropriate fashion to adults," his attorney, Andrew B. Siben, of <a href="/topics/Bay_Shore%2C_NY">Bay Shore</a>, said, referring to the report. The report notes that after Esposito's mother, Rose, and one of his brothers, Patrick, died in close succession in 1991, "he also became fearful that he would lose Katie," Siben said. 
 Katie was one of the many children whose company he sought out. While Esposito had been a longtime friend of Katie's mother, Marilyn Beers, brother John Beers, and the Inghilleris, he also had been mentors to unofficial "little brothers." Children were known to flock to his <a href="/topics//Bay_Shore,_NY">Bay Shore</a> home, where his garage was filled with games. 
 Catterson, after the sentencing, described Esposito as "a perfect example of a true pedophile." 
 But only once before had Esposito's fascination with children led to trouble with the law. In 1977, he'd been caught by <a href="/topics/Nassau_County%2C_NY">Nassau</a> police leading a young boy from Sunrise Mall in <a href="/topics/Massapequa%2C_NY">Massapequa</a> to his car. The boy began to cry, and Esposito fled. A month later, Esposito was arrested when security guards recognized him wandering around the mall again. He pleaded guilty to a charge of unlawful imprisonment, keeping the incident a secret from family and friends. 
 Fifteen years later, Esposito built a 6by 7-foot dungeon under his home at 1416 Saxon Ave. that could only be reached by moving a 100-pound piece of cement foundation, crawling down a verticle shaft and then through a lateral passageway. Esposito last month stunned authorities when he admitted the bunker was built one year in advance with Katie in mind. "It was constructed to hold Katie," Esposito admitted when he pleaded guilty.

ny-katiebeers

From the Archives: Esposito apologizes to Katie Beers at sentencing

Originally published in Newsday on May 23, 1992. 
A high school senior from <a href="/topics/Merrick%2C_NY">Merrick</a> who <a href="/topics/Nassau_County%2C_NY">Nassau</a> police say was "obsessed" with her married lover has confessed to shooting the <a href="/topics/Massapequa%2C_NY">Massapequa</a> man's wife in the doorway of their home Tuesday after he attempted to end their affair, authorities said. 
Amy <a href="/topics/Amy_Fisher">Fisher</a>, 17, a senior at John F. Kennedy High School in <a href="/topics/Bellmore%2C_NY">Bellmore</a>, was having an affair with Joseph Buttafuoco, 38, and jealously tried to kill his wife, Mary Josephine, police said. 
"[Fisher] wanted him, and he didn't want her anymore," <a href="/topics/Nassau_County%2C_NY">Nassau</a> Homicide Det. Sgt. Daniel Severin said yesterday in announcing the girl's arrest. "If she couldn't have him, no one else could. She was obsessed with him. It was a near fatal attraction." 
The 37-year-old woman was shot in the right side of her head after she answered her door on Adam Road West. Doctors had told police that the wounded woman was expected to die, but she rallied and was able to describe her attacker. She was in critical but stable condition last night at the Nassau County Medical Center in <a href="/topics/East_Meadow%2C_NY">East Meadow</a>. 
Fisher, who is supposed to graduate June 28, confessed to the shooting, Assistant District Attorney Fred Klein said at Fisher's arraignment yesterday in First District Court, <a href="/topics/Hempstead%2C_NY">Hempstead</a>. 
"Your honor, we have a very strong case," Klein said. "We can prove she purchased the gun, was driven to that location, rang the doorbell and with a .25-caliber automatic handgun shot the victim and left her on the doorstep to die . . . She then disposed of the gun and clothing that was bloody . . . and attempted an alibi." 
Severin said the break in the case came on Wednesday when Mary Josephine Buttafuoco, a homemaker and mother of two, made what her doctors described as a "miraculous recovery" and was able to give police a description of her assailant. 
"And then the husband, with his cooperation, filled in the blanks" and identified Fisher, Severin said. 
Severin said the victim was unaware of the affair, but Fisher's parents were aware of it. Severin said Joseph Buttafuoco was unaware of Fisher's plan to kill his wife. 
Police declined to comment about the person who drove Fisher to the Buttafuoco home on Tuesday, saying only that more arrests are expected. 
During her arraignment, the petite teenager with long auburn hair, wearing shorts and a T-shirt, seemed out of place among the other prisoners in the courtroom detention area. She sat in a corner and wept. Her case was the last to be called for the day. 
Fisher pleaded not guilty to second-degree attempted murder and criminal use of a firearm: a .25-cal. automatic pistol. 
With her parents, Elliot and Roseanne Fisher of 2092 Berkley Lane, standing a few feet behind her embracing one another, Fisher bowed her head as the prosecutor told District Court Judge Bruce Alpert that Fisher had admitted to the crime in a written statement to detectives. 
In requesting low bail, defense attorney Christine Edwards-Neumann told the judge that Fisher lives with her parents, who own a business in <a href="/topics/Freeport%2C_NY">Freeport</a> - Stitch and Sew upholstery shop - and that she had never been in trouble with the law before. 
But Klein, trying to make a point that Fisher's parents had no control over her, told the judge that Fisher previously ran away from home. In a February, 1991, missing person's report, her father described her as "totally uncontrollable," Klein said. 
Fisher, who had told authorities she planned to enter <a href="/topics/Nassau_Community_College">Nassau Community College</a> in the fall, was ordered held without bail. The judge granted a defense motion to keep her in protective custody. Fisher's parents and lawyer declined to comment outside the courtroom. 
According to police, Fisher met Joseph Buttafuoco in late 1990 when she accompanied her parents to Buttafuoco's family-owned business in <a href="/topics/Baldwin%2C_NY">Baldwin</a> - Complete Auto Body - because their car needed work. A sexual relationship began about a year ago, and the two would meet in motels and other locations on the South Shore. 
Mary Josephine Buttafuoco was shot at about 11:45 a.m. Tuesday at her home, which overlooks the <a href="/topics/Massapequa%2C_NY">Massapequa</a> Grand Canal and is located in an upper middle-class neighborhood known as Biltmore Shores. Her son, 12, and daughter, 9, were at school at the time, and her husband was at work. 
Neighbors reported seeing a dark-colored car with a male driver leaving the scene, but police were tight-lipped about the car. 
Fisher was arrested Thursday night after police pulled over a dark-colored car she was driving - a 1990 <a href="/topics/Chrysler">Chrysler</a> Le Baron convertible - on <a href="/topics/Merrick%2C_NY">Merrick</a> Road in Merrick, Severin said. He declined to say whether the <a href="/topics/Chrysler">Chrysler</a>, which belongs to Fisher's parents, was the car used in the shooting. 
A hospital spokeswoman said Mary Josephine Buttafuoco, who underwent eight hours of surgery Tuesday, was no longer in intensive care and is off a respirator. Paul Buttafuoco, 12, answered the phone at the family's home yesterday and said his father had no comment. "My mom is going to be okay. That's all I care about," Paul said. Officials at Complete Auto Body also declined to comment. 
Severin said of Joseph Buttafuoco: "Obviously he is quite upset about what happened to his wife and is remorseful about what led to the incident." 
Fred Cohen, the principal at Kennedy, who is a neighbor of the Buttafuocos, yesterday said that he was "shocked" but that <a href="/topics/Bellmore%2C_NY">Bellmore</a>-Merrick Central High School District policy forbids him from talking about cases in which students have been arrested. 
Fisher was described by school employees as a "sort of unremarkable student" who didn't belong to any clubs or sports teams. One said, "She wasn't a loner. She had a group of friends." 
Neighbors of the Buttafuocos said they were relieved to know the case had been solved. One neighbor, Thomas Clauss, said he was "appalled . . . This has always been a quiet neighborhood." 
He added that he didn't know the couple well but that they seemed friendly, and he would run into them now and then at the Biltmore Beach Club down the street. "Whenever I see them around the club, they're as happy as two pigs in mud," he said. "I've never seen them argue." 
Maureen Fan and <a href="/topics/Michael_Alexander">Michael Alexander</a> contributed to this story.

ny-amyfisher

Girl, 17, confesses to shooting lover's wife, cops say

0KN963LC.JPG

Originally published in Newsday on April 4, 1990 
After deliberating less than eight hours, a <a href="/topics/Nassau_County%2C_NY">Nassau</a> County Court jury yesterday found Robert Golub guilty of second-degree murder in the March, 1989, killing of Kelly Ann Tinyes, a verdict that triggered pandemonium in a packed <a href="/topics/Mineola%2C_NY">Mineola</a> courtroom. 
Golub, expressionless, looked once at the jury as the verdict was read, back at Judge Marvin Goodman and then, once more, at the jury as it was polled, member by member. Then he stood up and put his arms behind him for the waiting handcuffs. He looked briefly, still without expression, at his parents and was led quietly away to jail. 
The courtroom erupted in screams as the verdict was read. 
Victoria Tinyes, mother of the victim, burst into tears and pounded on the railing in front of her. "Are you happy now?" screamed Linda Player, the dead girl's aunt, at the defendant's family. Kelly's grandfather began shouting at the Golubs, "You rotten bastards!" Richard Tinyes, Kelly's father, stormed out of the courtroom in a rage, kicking a courthouse display board in the lobby. 
Golub's mother, Elizabeth, closing her eyes and leaning her head back, sobbed and whispered through tightened jaws as her husband, John, put his arm around her. The defendant's older sister, Adele Golub, screamed back at the Tinyeses, "I didn't do it!" Her father, John, his face reddened and fighting tears, tried to restrain her. 
The judge shouted vainly for order, then ordered the courtroom cleared. A host of court officers surrounded the families and began escorting them out. The Golub family was ushered from the courtroom under a heavy escort of white-shirted court officers. Outside, they were placed in a waiting limousine, which sped off with an escort of police cars. 
"Don't be concerned about your safety," the judge told the jurors, whose identities he had ordered sealed, citing fears of harassment. "Your names haven't been released. Your addresses haven't been released." 
In an interview later, Richard Tinyes was asked what went through his mind when the verdict was announced. "I knew I had an angel sitting on my shoulder," he said. Asked who that was, he added, "One was Kelly and one was my father." His father, John L. Tinyes, died of cancer a month after the murder of the 13-year-old girl, who had helped care for him during his illness. 
One of the jurors, who spoke last night on condition of anonymity, said the prosecution's scientific testimony - which linked Golub to the killing through blood, hair and dental evidence - was of central importance to the verdict. "It really wasn't one thing," said the juror. "It was the accumulation of the evidence: the DNA, the palm-print and the bite-mark." 
A second juror interviewed last night agreed, saying, "Everything just pointed in one direction." 
The jury foreman, appearing shaken and drawn in a brief interview at his home later, declined to discuss the deliberations. 
Another juror said, "We were all prepared for a scene, but I don't think any of us was prepared for that much of a scene. A few of us expected to hear cheers or cries, but we couldn't even hear what was going on it was so loud." 
Kelly's battered, mutilated body was found by police in a basement closet of the Golub home on March 4, 1989, the morning after she walked down the block after receiving a phone call from someone at the Golub home, testimony showed. Robert Golub, 22, denied any involvement, saying he was in the house when the was killed but maintaining he had not seen her. He did not testify during the eight-week trial. 
After the verdict, the prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Daniel Cotter, called it "the most difficult case I've handled." He said he would recommend the maximum sentence, 25 years to life, a term Cotter said "it's almost guaranteed" Goodman will impose. Sentencing was set for June 1. 
Goodman ordered a psychiatric examination for Golub in setting the sentencing date, a standard procedure. 
Defense lawyer Salvatore Marinello, who maintained that police and prosecutors targeted his client out of frustration with a baffling case, also was escorted from the courtroom under guard and couldn't be reached for immediate comment. <a href="/topics/David_Grossman">David Grossman</a>, who assisted in the defense, said Marinello was "exploring the possibility" of an appeal. 
On Horton Road, a neighborhood that exploded in rage and fear after the killing, dozens of friends and neighbors gathered outside the Tinyes home and along the street after the verdict, carrying balloons, flowers and bottles of champagne for the victim's family. Relatives were inside the Tinyes home, but the Tinyes family did not return home after the verdict, going to a relative's house instead and not returning home until 12:15 a.m. this morning. Police cars sat outside both the Tinyes home and the Golub's, and the block was heavily patrolled by police throughout the evening. 
"Justice had to be done for our kids," said Ginger Falco, whose 14-year-old daughter, Stephanie, had grown up with Kelly. 
"I hope he rots in jail," said Gina Fischer, referring to Robert Golub, who has been held without bail at the <a href="/topics/Nassau_County%2C_NY">Nassau</a> County Jail since his arrest last March. 
By contrast, the Golub house, at 81 Horton Rd., remained dark and apparently empty until late last night, when the defendant's parents returned home, and were immediately surrounded by news reporters seeking their reaction to the verdict and the uproar at the courthouse. 
"We've come to expect that from them," John Golub said of the Tinyes family. Asked if the Golubs intended to move out of the neighborhood, he replied, "I don't think so." 
Court officers said they were shocked by the reaction to the verdict. John Baglivi, a court officer for 23 years, said "I've never seen an outburst like that in all the trials Ive been on." Victor Ort, chief clerk of the court, said looking at the Golub parents "was one of the most heartrending things I've ever seen. I thought Mr. Golub was going to have a heart attack right on the spot." 
The outburst "was like spontaneous combustion," he said. 
The swift verdict followed less than a full day's deliberation by the jury. The panel had started on the case about 3:30 p.m. Monday after being charged by Goodman that it would have to find the defendant guilty or not guilty of the charge of second-degree murder. 
Jurors, faced with a enormous amount of technical evidence embracing more than 200 exhibits, asked for some of that soon after beginning deliberations Monday, dwelling particularly on bite-mark evidence which the prosecution said involved bites made by Golub on the body. 
Later the panel asked for a readback only on testimony as to who was, or was not, in the Golub home on the fatal afternoon of March 3, 1989. It got that yesterday morning, broke for lunch, and reconvened at 1. 
Just before handing up its verdict, it asked for a readback of the law on what comprises second-degree murder - the highest possible charge in New York State not involving the killing of a police officer. 
"I felt when I walked out of the court I wasn't able to talk to anybody. It may have not been visible, but I literally was shaking," Cotter said as he relaxed in his office about an hour after the emotional trial climax, accepting congratulations from colleagues. 
Cotter said he at first expected jury deliberations to go a lot longer. He changed his mind early yesterday. 
"When I saw this morning how they [jurors] cut through the readbacks and went to what they wanted . . . it was clear they had a lot of the facts," Cotter said. 
The verdict was the jury's solution to what Marinello had described as "The Mystery of 81 Horton Road." 
There, in the Golub house on the afternoon of March 3, 1989, in a basement room, Kelly met a violent, agonizing and bloody death; her head bashed repeatedly, her chest slashed; she was strangled and sexually mutilated. 
All the while this was going on, the defendant hadinsisted, he was upstairs in his bedroom, napping and watching television. He insisted that he did not even know Kelly was in the house. 
The prosecution sought to prove that there was a period of time when Golub was alone in the house with the girl and could reasonably be judged the murderer. The defense tried to show that none of this testimony was strong enough to convict the defendant. 
Without confession and witnesses, the district attorney's office sought to prove its case with an array of circumstantial evidence: Golub's palm print - in blood, the prosecution insisted - near where the body was discovered; traces of Golub's blood mixed with the victim's on articles at the murder scene; a hair, said to be Kelly's, found on Golub's bedsheet in his upstairs room; his teeth marks, on the neck and buttock of the victim's body. 
The trial turned into a battle of scientific expertise: forensic experts on autopsy; police experts on blood and handprints, genetics experts on DNA identification; dental experts on bite marks and dental impressions. The prosecution's specialists sought to establish that this data tied Golub to the scene. The defense insisted they were erroneous, fragmentary and insufficient. 
But in counterpoint to the stream of technical data was an atmosphere of horror and hostility, from the nature of the brutal murder and from the fact that the accused and victim were neighbors, living only a few houses apart. 
Richard Tinyes, in a telephone interview last night, said the verdict could be a first step back for a family that has been living a nightmare. 
"No matter how many years he gets, it don't bring back my daughter. It relieves a lot more. Maybe we can get back to a normal life - maybe. I have to go back to my business and continue my life. I have my wife and son to worry about." 
Eric Nagourney, Liz Willen,&nbsp;Elizabeth Wasserman, Carol Eisenberg and Alvin E. Bessent contributed to this story

ny-kellytinyes

The verdict on Golub: Guilty

tinyes-golub

Originally published in Newsday on December 15, 1989 
 A <a href="/topics/Suffolk_County%2C_NY">Suffolk</a> County jury yesterday found Richard Angelo guilty of second-degree murder for injecting two patients with a paralyzing drug, but found him guilty of lesser charges - manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide - in the deaths of two other patients. 
 The jury, which deliberated for 7 1/2 days, also convicted Angelo of assaulting only one of three patients he was accused of assaulting in a verdict that both the prosecution and defense saw as an acceptable compromise. 
 In interviews, jurors said they were split on whether Angelo was aware of what he was doing and eventually concluded he was not aware of what he was doing in giving the drug Pavulon to the first patient he was accused of killing, but later became aware of the effects of his actions - prompting the manslaughter and murder convictions. 
 Angelo, who was called "a monster in nurse's whites" by the prosecution, faces a maximum term of 50 years to life when he is sentenced Jan. 17 by <a href="/topics/Suffolk_County%2C_NY">Suffolk</a> County Court Judge Alfred Tisch. The case boiled down to whether Angelo knew the risk he was taking when he injected patients with drugs that blocked their breathing so he could prove his worth by responding to the emergency call to revive them, according to seven jurors who were interviewed after court. In the case of three of the four victims, they decided he acted recklessly, thus supporting the convictions on manslaughter and murder. 
 "I've never in my life seen the stress that we've gone through," said one juror, Michel A. Loguercio of <a href="/topics/Mastic%2C_NY">Mastic</a>, after the trial was over. "For eight long days, all of us lived three lives: we lived our own and Mr. Angelo's lives, and the victims' and their families'. " 
 Angelo only blinked twice while he stared blankly ahead as the verdicts were read about 12:30 p.m. yesterday. The jurors showed more emotion as some of them wiped away tears. 
 Other reactions to the verdict ranged from apparent calm acceptance by Angelo's parents, Alice and Joseph - who sat in the first spectators' row in the <a href="/topics/Riverhead%2C_NY">Riverhead</a> courtroom just behind their son yesterday as they did throughout the nine-week trial - to the delight expressed by a daughter of one of Angelo's victims. 
 The Angelos left the courtroom without comment. And Carole Scollo, the daughter of murder victim Milton Poultney, said in a telephone interview she wished Angelo could be sentenced to some of his own medicine. 
 <a href="/topics/Good_Samaritan_Hospital">Good Samaritan Hospital</a> issued a statement yesterday saying that it was relieved that a "tragic, senseless" chapter in its 30-year history had ended and again extended its sympathy to the families of Angelo's victims. 
 Angelo's defense attorney, Eric Naiburg, declined comment on whether there will be an appeal. 
 "It's obviously not the verdict I was looking for, but it's a compromise," Naiburg said. "It was an adversary proceeding. It's not the verdict that Mr. Collins was looking for either," he added, referring to Assistant District Attorney John Collins. "But it's probably what justice demanded." 
 Naiburg, in his summation, had argued to the jury that his client did inject the seven patients in the hospital's special care unit with paralyzing drugs and may have caused some of their deaths, but that because of a mental disorder Angelo didn't comprehend the grave and unjustifiable risk he was taking with their lives. 
 To find Angelo guilty of second-degree murder by depraved indifference to human life, the jurors had to find that he disregarded the grave and unjustifiable risk to human life by his actions and acted with depravity. Second-degree manslaughter is recklessly causing death and criminally negligent homicide is failing to perceive the risk attached to conduct but taking action that is grossly negligent. 
 Naiburg asked the jury to return verdicts of criminally negligent homicide on the four murder counts, which they did only in the case of one victim, Frederick LaGois, whom Angelo claimed he accidentally injected with Pavulon. 
 And the jurors decided to find Angelo guilty of second-degree manslaughter in the case of the first patient he injected, <a href="/topics/John_Stanley">John Stanley</a> Fisher. 
 But in the case of two other victims, Anthony Greene and Poultney, the jurors concluded that Angelo had perceived the grave and unjustifiable risk he was taking with their lives and acted with depravity when he injected them with Pavulon. 
 Collins stood on the courthouse steps and said that he was satisfied with the verdict. 
 "I don't think he cared one bit for the people that he did this to. I think what this was all about was the [emergency] code and the rush of adrenalin that happens during the code and not the gratification of saving somebody's life, the gratification that comes from the situation itself." 
 Collins added, "In other words it's analagous to the volunteer fireman who sets the fire and then sits there and watches it burn and doesn't fight the fire and then ultimately gets involved in fighting the fire. He doesn't give a damn whether the building burns down ultimately but that he was able to participate in fighting the fire." 
 The seven jurors interviewed after court and by telephone differed on what they thought had motivated Angelo but said that was not the critical issue in reaching their verdict. 
 The key was whether Angelo was aware of the risk he was taking with his patients' lives when he injected them with drugs that would paralyze their breathing. 
 The defense psychiatrist, Dr. Daniel Schwartz, had testified Angelo suffers from a "dissociative disorder" that gives him "strange kinds of separation from reality. " But the prosecution's two psychiatrists, Dr. Allen Reichman and Dr. Eric Block, disagreed, saying that they thought Angelo didn't disconnect the consequences of his actions from the actions until after he knew he was in trouble. 
 Initially, the jurors were split 6-6 on the awareness issue, and then broke down into camps of eight who believed that he was aware and four who believed that he wasn't. 
 "The mental health experts didn't help us out a lot," said one juror, <a href="/topics/Virginia">Virginia</a> R. Kacin. "All they did is contradict each other. " She added: "The point they couldn't agree on was when he began to dissociate, and that's the point that made it very difficult for the jury." 
 Another juror, Thomas Scelza, said that he was convinced "just from the beginning. I just couldn't see that he had blocked it out. The lawyers conceded that he injected people. They found Pavulon in their system and then the toxicologist's report showed that they died of Pavulon poisoning. The evidence was clear." 
 The split between the jurors was bridged yesterday morning after they listened to a readback of Gerolamo Kucich's testimony, according to another juror, Mary Malone. Kucich, the one victim who survived, identified Angelo as the bearded man in a white lab coat who gave him an injection "to make you feel better" just before he went into respiratory arrest, a terrifying experience that the 75-year-old Kucich described as making him call out to his mother and father for help. 
 That testimony, Malone said, "woke a few people up to the fact that Angelo was aware of what he was doing. " 
 Loguercio and other jurors explained they found Angelo not guilty of murder and guilty of second-degree manslaughter in the case of his first victim, Fisher, because they believed that at that point he was feeling inadequate and looking for a way to prove himself and may not have realized the risk. 
 But the jurors said they believed that as Angelo went on, he had to know that he was risking the lives of the patients he injected, Loguercio said. 
 In the case of the three alleged assault victims, the jurors found Angelo guilty of first-degree assault with respect to Kucich, but not guilty of any degree of assault with respect to Joan Hayes and Joseph O'<a href="/topics/John_O%27Neill">Neill</a>. Pavulon was found in the exhumed bodies of both Hayes and O'<a href="/topics/John_O%27Neill">Neill</a>, but the <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> County Medical Examiner's office ruled that both of them died of natural causes. But Angelo was convicted of second-degree assault in the cases of Fisher, Poultney and Greene. 
 "I believe he got <a href="/topics//John_O'Neill">O'Neill</a> and Hayes," Loguercio said. "I'd bet the house on it. But the thing was that John [Collins] didn't really come up with enough evidence to prove in our minds that he did." 
 The Victims and the Verdicts The seven persons Angelo was accused of killing or injuring, and the jury's verdict on the charges involving each of them: 
 <a href="/topics/John_Stanley">John Stanley</a> Fisher, 75, of <a href="/topics/Amityville%2C_NY">Amityville</a> Admitted to the hospital on Sept. 4, 1987, with signs of a stroke. By Sept. 7, his condition had stabilized. Suffered attack at 2:45 a.m. Sept. 8 and died about 20 minutes later. Guilty of second-degree manslaughter and second-degree assault. 
 Anthony Greene, 57, of <a href="/topics/North_Babylon%2C_NY">North Babylon</a> Suffered from <a href="/topics/COPD">chronic obstructive pulmonary disease</a>. Seemed to be doing well until 4:26 a.m. Sept. 28, when he went into respiratory arrest. Although he was revived, he remained in a coma until Oct. 16, when he died. Guilty of second-degree murder and second-degree assault. 
 Frederick LaGois, 60, of <a href="/topics/Babylon%2C_NY">Babylon</a> Was awaiting prostate surgery when he went into cardiac arrest Oct. 9, 1987, the night before he was to undergo the surgery. Died 12 hours later. Guilty of criminally negligent homicide. 
 Milton Poultney, 74, of <a href="/topics/Lindenhurst%2C_NY">Lindenhurst</a> Was recovering from gall bladder surgery when he went into cardiac arrest on Sept. 16, 1987, and died. Guilty of second-degree murder and second-degree assault. 
 Gerolamo Kucich, 75 Traveled more than 4,000 miles from his home in <a href="/topics//Yugoslavia">Yugoslavia</a> to visit his son in <a href="/topics/Dix_Hills%2C_NY">Dix Hills</a> when he began to experience chest pains and was taken taken to Good Samaritan. Early on the morning of Oct. 11, 1987, a man in a white coat whom he thought was a doctor came into his room, and asked him how he was feeling and injected something into his intraveneous tube. The only victim in the indictment who survived, he testified at the trial and has since returned to Yugoslavia. Guilty of two counts of first-degree assault. 
 Joseph Francis O'Neill, 79 A former Suffolk County assistant district attorney from <a href="/topics/West_Islip%2C_NY">West Islip</a>, was admitted to Good Samaritan on Sept. 21, 1987, for treatment of gastrointestinal problems. Because of his advanced age and weak heart, he was placed in the hospital's intensive- and cardiac-care unit. Died that night. Not guilty of second-degree assault. 
 Joan Hayes, 53 Was alleged to have received her unauthorized injection of Pavulon at about the time O'Neill was being wheeled to the morgue by the nurse taking care of both of them. Two hours after O'Neill died, Hayes, who suffered from kidney problems, went into respiratory arrest and died. Not guilty of three counts of assault. 
 The Case of Richard Angelo April 6, 1987: Angelo begins working as a nurse in the cardiac care/intensive-care unit of <a href="/topics/Good_Samaritan_Hospital">Good Samaritan Hospital</a> in <a href="/topics/West_Islip%2C_NY">West Islip</a>. Oct. 9, 1987: Frederick LaGois, 60, at Good Samaritan awaiting prostate surgery, unexpectedly goes into cardiac arrest and dies. Oct. 11, 1987: A "heavyset, bearded man in a white coat" enters the <a href="/topics//Good_Samaritan_Hospital">Good Samaritan Hospital</a> room of Gerolamo Kucich, a 73-year-old cardiac-care patient. The man injects something into Kucich's intravenous tube; shortly thereafter, Kucich has trouble breathing and nearly goes into respiratory arrest. Richard Angelo , the only bearded man on duty that night, helps revive Kucich with a hand-held respirator. Oct. 12, 1987: Hospital begins internal inquiry. A photograph of Angelo is shown to Kucich, who says he is "90-percent certain" that he was the man who injected something into his IV. Angelo is suspended from the hospital with pay, pending an investigation. He denies any wrongdoing. Oct. 13, 1987: A nurse reports that a 10-cubic-centimeter vial of Pavulon - a drug that causes total paralysis of the major muscles of the body - is missing from the unit refrigerator. Oct. 14, 1987: Good Samaritan reports the Kucich case to the state <a href="/topics/Health_Department">Health Department</a>. After consulting the Suffolk County medical examiner, the hospital takes a sample of Kucich's urine and sends it for analysis at a <a href="/topics/Pennsylvania">Pennsylvania</a> lab. The hospital continues its investigation and finds records of 10 patients whose hearts or breathing stopped under suspicious circumstances and either died or were saved. Nov. 3, 1987: The <a href="/topics/Pennsylvania">Pennsylvania</a> laboratory reports that Pavulon was found in Kucich's urine sample. Hospital officials contact Suffolk District Attorney <a href="/topics/Patrick_Henry">Patrick Henry</a>, and for the first time tell law-enforcement authorities of their suspicions. Police begin surveillance of Angelo. Nov. 13, 1987: Newsday gets anonymous tip that the police and DA's office are investigating a series of suspicious deaths at Good Samaritan. Sources in the DA's office confirm and elaborate on details in exchange for Newsday's agreement withhold publication until Sunday, Nov. 15, to give police time to find Angelo. Nov. 15, 1987: Angelo is arrested in Albany while attending convention of Emergency Medical Technicians. He confesses to police on his way back to Suffolk County, and agrees to confess on videotape when he arrives. Nov. 16, 1987: Angelo is charged with assault in the Kucich case. Nov. 19, 1987: Judge orders the exhumations of seven patients who died while Angelo was on duty. More exhumations follow, for a total to 33. Nov. 21, 1987: Angelo pleads not guilty to three counts of assault and is ordered held without bail. Jan. 13. 1988: Angelo is indicted on a murder charge in the death of patient Frederick LaGois. Dec. 22, 1988: Angelo is indicted on charges of second-degree murder in the deaths of John <a href="/topics//John_Stanley">Stanley</a> Fisher, Anthony Greene and Milton Poultney. He was also charged with assault in connection with the death of Joan I. Hayes, and attempted assault in the death of <a href="/topics/John_O%27Neill">John O'Neill</a>. Oct. 19, 1989: Opening arguments in trial begin. Dec. 14, 1989: Jury returns verdict convicting Angelo of two counts of murder, one of manslaughter, one of criminally negligent homicide and one of assault not connected with the deaths. 
 Dele Olojede contributed to this article

ny-richard-angelo

The verdict on Angelo: Murder found in 2 deaths

Originally published in Newsday on January 12, 1988 
Matthew Solomon was charged yesterday with the Christmas Eve murder of his wife, Lisa, after he strangled her during an argument about whether she should leave the house, police said. 
As he choked her, Solomon recounted in a written confession, She said she hated me . . . I asked her to please calm down as I squeezed her. A few minutes later she was quiet. 
Police said they were able to induce a confession from Solomon, 23, because they had developed physical evidence that the body was in his car and that he had taken it to the frozen field where it was found wrapped in a garbage bag. They said they also had obtained a videotape of Solomon purchasing garbage bags at a convenience store on Christmas Eve. 
District Attorney <a href="/topics/Patrick_Henry">Patrick Henry</a> said police initially became suspicious of Solomon after he gave relatives suggestions on the types of places a search should be conducted, even specifying how many feet off the roadway they should search. 
A search party of relatives and friends found the body at a location generally matching Solomon's suggestions, <a href="/topics/Patrick_Henry">Henry</a> said. 
Solomon was picked up by <a href="/topics/Suffolk_County%2C_NY">Suffolk</a> detectives at dawn as he left his <a href="/topics/Huntington_Station%2C_NY">Huntington Station</a> home for work, ending weeks of speculation that tailed the Christmas Eve disappearance of the 22-year-old bride. 
On Sunday night, during an interview at a local diner, Solomon told Newsday that he didn't kill his wife, and said, . . . people don't know the love that we shared. 
But within 90 minutes of his arrest yesterday, the sheetmetal worker had dryly confessed three times to watching his wife of two months die in his arms - in a written statement, a 40-minute videotape and a subsequent telephone conversation with his father, police said. Only after the telephone conversation, did Matthew Solomon break down and cry, police said. 
In his written statement, Solomon told <a href="/topics/Suffolk_County%2C_NY">Suffolk</a> law enforcement officials that he killed Lisa during a fight the newlyweds had had on Christmas Eve - a fight that was sparked by Solomon's falling asleep after lovemaking, he told police. 
Sometime around midnight, Lisa woke me up, Solomon said in the statement. She was upset. She couldn't believe I fell asleep on Christmas Eve. She was real mad. 
Solomon said that his wife was also upset about her father and mother being alone on Christmas Eve, and her dad was very ill. 
She said she was going out, Matthew Solomon said, noting that his wife was then clad in a T-shirt and panties. She was standing in front of the dresser. I tried to stop her from getting dressed. 
Their verbal argument turned physical and violent, Solomon told police. 
I had her in my arms. She bit me on my right bicep. I pulled away. She was under my left arm and we fell on the floor. I put my right arm around her neck . . . she said she hated me . . . I asked her to please calm down as I squeezed her. A few minutes later she was quiet. 
Solomon was arraigned yesterday afternoon and pleaded not guilty, a formality at arraignments. District Court Judge Donald Kitson ordered him held without bail. The <a href="/topics/Hauppauge%2C_NY">Hauppauge</a> courtroom was filled to capacity with members of the press, assistant district attorneys and county employees who were curious about the much-publicized case. 
Solomon's parents, Jack and Ruth, sat quietly in the second row, guarded from the media by their son's lawyer, Jeff Waller, until the handcuffed man was led before the bench. They joined him then, and stood by his side. 
At one point, Jack Solomon, after wiping away tears, clenched his fist and raised it, as if to offer support to his son. Solomon, clad in a black T-shirt and jeans, squared his shoulders and stood before Kitson. He said nothing to the judge. 
Waller argued that Solomon should be freed on $100,000 bail, saying the case against his client was shaky. 
As far as I can see, all they have right here, supposedly, is a confession, Waller said. 
But Timothy Mazzei, deputy homicide bureau chief for the district attorney's office, told Kitson that there was strong physical evidence connecting Matthew Solomon to the murder of his wife. Solomon's father said last week that Matthew had allowed police to fingerprint him, and had permitted detectives to take hair and blood samples. 
We can prove that the body was in his car and that he was the one who transported it, Mazzei said in a subsequent interview. We know that it was he who placed the body in the bag, from physical evidence. 
Mazzei said Solomon was allowed to leave Suffolk County on Wednesday for Dallas, where he visited relatives, because we didn't have the [crime-lab test] results by then and we didn't want anyone to know what we knew and what we were thinking. We didn't want him to become suspicious. 
However, subsequent to his departure, test results came back from Suffolk's crime laboratory that gave police the evidence they needed to confront Solomon. The physical evidence was our ace in the hole, Mazzei said. 
Sources said that trace evidence was obtained from Solomon's Oldsmobile, connecting the car to the body and to the scene where the corpse was found. Other evidence linked the garbage bag to the apartment, sources said. 
Additionally, Matthew Solomon bought plastic garbage bags at a local <a href="/topics/7-Eleven">7-Eleven</a> on Christmas Eve - a purchase that was videotaped by the store's internal security monitor, sources said. 
Police detectives also learned from neighbors that the Solomons were overheard having a heated argument before her disappearance. 
And in multiple conversations Solomon had with police before his arrest, 31 discrepancies emerged in accounts he gave of his whereabouts on Christmas Eve, said Norman Rein, one of the homicide detectives who handled the case. 
Those discrepencies certainly piqued our interest, Rein said yesterday. 
As the physical evidence was culled and neighbors' accounts collected, homicide detectives met on Sunday night with Edward Jablonski, chief of the district attorney's homicide bureau. After hearing a progress report on the case, Jablonski ordered police toarrest Solomon after his return from <a href="/topics/Texas">Texas</a> on Sunday. 
<a href="/topics/Patrick_Henry">Henry</a> said that the case would be put before a grand jury shortly. 
He said that Solomon acted alone, and that he told no one about his involvement in the murder. 
No one else is involved in the commission of the crime, Henry said. According to police and officials in the district attorney's office, after strangling Lisa Solomon, Matthew left her body on the floor for 15 minutes. Then, noticing that she had involuntarily urinated during the strangulation, Solomon carried his wife's body into the bathroom, where he placed her in the bathtub. He did not wash it. 
He placed her inside the plastic bags in his apartment, then put her in the trunk of his car, said Arthur Feldman, Suffolk chief of detectives. He drove around for 40 minutes. 
On <a href="/topics/Miller_Place%2C_NY">Miller Place</a>, where Solomon lived, equal parts of shock and relief were expressed by neighbors as the word spread of Matthew Solomon's arrest. 
Holly Stewart, who lives across the street from 17 <a href="/topics/Miller_Place%2C_NY">Miller Place</a>, where the Solomons lived, said that before the murder, neighbors had walked around without much thought of violent crime. After Lisa's body was found, they were filled with trepidation. 
If we had to go put out the garbage, which you never thought about before, you said to your husband, `I'm going to put the garbage out. I'll be right back,' Stewart said. 
I'm glad that it's over to tell you the truth. Everyone was concerned here. They're all worried about their children, said Edward F. Yuchowitz, a neighbor who has lived on Miller Place for 25 years. 
We were hoping that it wasn't him, but everything pointed to him, he said. 
Mazzei said that homicide detectives also believed everything pointed to Solomon. 
If you're the killer and you know the homicide detectives know that, nine out of ten times you confess, he said. They can't lie anymore. And that's what happened in this case. 
Stuart Vincent contributed to this story. 
Solomon's Statement Excerpts from his confession, according to police: 
Sometime around midnight, Lisa woke me up. She was upset. She couldn't believe I fell asleep on Christmas Eve. She was real mad. [She was also] ... upset about her father and mother being alone on Christmas Eve, and her dad was very ill ... She said she was going out. She was standing in front of the dresser. I tried to stop her from getting dressed ... I had her in my arms. She bit me on my right bicep. I pulled away. She was under my left arm and we fell on the floor. I put my right arm around her neck ... she said she hated me ... I asked her to please calm down as I squeezed her. A few minutes later she was quiet.

ny-lisasolomon

Cops: Solomon admits killing wife, charged in murder

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