More testimony in '94 murder trial

As the wife of slain armored-car guard Julius Baumgardt watched and wept, witnesses testified Tuesday that they looked on helplessly while Baumgardt was shot to death during a 1994 robbery in Muttontown.

During dramatic testimony at the triple-murder trial of Christian Tarantino in federal court in Central Islip, Christine Baumgardt dabbed her eyes with a tissue while office workers described the last moments of her husband's life. Baumgardt looked away when crime-scene photographs of her husband's covered body were projected on a screen.

Tarantino, a Dix Hills health club operator, is charged with taking part in the robbery that led to Baumgardt's death.

Witnesses said Baumgardt and another guard were ambushed outside a Muttontown office building on June 23, 1994, by two men wearing pig masks and a man in a blue or brown suit.

"I started banging on the window and shouting," in a futile attempt to stop the robbery, said Lynn Kennedy, 40, a supervisor at a data entry company in the building. Then, she said, after the men went behind the truck, "I heard a gunshot."

Kennedy and other workers at the Jericho Turnpike building, questioned Tuesday by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Flynn, testified that Julius Baumgardt was part of an armored car business that cashed checks for the data entry firm.

Brian Pattison, 45, who had been an investment banker at the building, said he and two colleagues were outside for a cigarette break when Baumgardt and the other guard approached them.

Pattison said two gunmen appeared and ordered him and his colleagues to the ground.

He testified he heard someone being handcuffed, followed by a gunshot blast as Baumgardt was shot.

Late in the afternoon, Christine Baumgardt and her daughter, Jean Baumgardt, sobbed and left the courtroom when a photo of Julius Baumgardt's uncovered body was shown in court.

Tarantino also is charged with taking part in the deaths of two associates, Louis Dorval and Vincent Garguilo. If convicted, Tarantino faces life in prison.

Prosecutors say Tarantino ordered the killings of Dorval and Garguilo, who he believed were about to turn him in to the FBI.

Dorval took part in the robbery and shot Baumgardt, court papers say. Two months later, Dorval's body was found in a toolbox floating in the Atlantic Ocean. Garguilo, a friend of Tarantino, was shot dead in Manhattan in 2003.