Melville man gets 24-years-to life for killing owner of Brooklyn pizzeria
People dine outside at L&B Spumoni Gardens in Brooklyn earlier this month. A Melville man was sentenced to prison Monday for the 2016 fatal shooting of an owner of the pizzeria. , Credit: AP/Kathy Willens
A Melville man was sentenced Monday to 24-years-to-life in prison for fatally shooting the owner of Brooklyn’s renowned L & B Spumoni Gardens pizzeria.
Andres "Andy" Fernandez, 45, had been convicted Dec. 9 of second-degree murder and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon for the 2016 shooting of the owner, Louis Barbati, whom he stalked from the pizzeria and ambushed outside Barbati’s Dyker Heights home, according to a news release from the Brooklyn district attorney’s office.
At the time of the killing, Barbati was carrying a plastic bag with $15,483 in cash — which Fernandez did not take.
"This defendant is now facing the serious consequences for the brazen ambush murder of an innocent and beloved local business owner right outside of his home," Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez, said in a news release.
"Nothing will bring him back," Gonzalez said of Barbati, "but I hope this significant sentence brings some small measure of solace to his heartbroken family and friends."
In 2016, Robert Boyce, then the NYPD’s chief of detectives, said robbery was a suspected motive.
Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun sentenced Fernandez, who the release said was seen hanging out around the pizzeria the day of the killing.
The victim was related to Ludovico Barbati, who founded the pizzeria after peddling pizza from a horse and wagon beginning in 1918. The eatery was established in the late 1930s.
A call Monday to L & B Spumoni Gardens — a family-owned eatery famous for its thick Sicilian pies that regularly makes lists of New York City's best pizza — rang busy early Monday night.
Fernandez’s lawyer couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.
