Plea rejected; evidence could be, too
By Lisa Coryell/For The Times
TRENTON - Murder defendant Rosario DiGirolamo refused a plea deal yesterday that would have gotten him 30 years in prison, and his defense attorney claimed that the prosecution had compromised evidence in the form of a saw that DiGirolomo had allegedly used to dismember his former mistress.
The handsaw, which prosecutors say was used to dismember slain Hightstown mom Amy Giordano, had never been used until investigators seized it from DiGirolamo's house and tested it -- allegedly improperly -- as evidence in the grisly 2007 murder, Attorney Jerome Ballarotto argued.
Ballarotto wants to prevent the saw from being introduced as evidence in DiGirolamo's murder trial, which has been scheduled for Jan. 3, 2011.
DiGirolamo, 35, is charged with murdering his 27-year-old mistress Giordano, dismembering her body and dumping parts of it in a Staten Island pond.
Prosecutors say the handsaw seized from the Millstone home DiGirolamo shared with his then- wife was tested on cow bones, and left markings similar to the ones found on Giordano's corpse. Ballarotto said the saw had been brand new in its Home Depot bag and still had the cardboard cover over its blade when investigators took it. He said investigators never bothered to test it to see if it had been used before conducting forensic tests with it."Had the saw not been used to cut cow bones, our expert would have been able to prove it was brand new and had never been used," he told Mercer County Superior Court Judge Edward Neafsy.
"They destroyed our opportunity (to prove the saw was brand new)," said Ballarotto. "They can't use the saw (as evidence.)"
A fall hearing is planned to determine whether the saw will be introduced during the trial.Assistant Prosecutor Tom Meidt, who is trying the case against DiGirolamo, said the saw is not critical to the trial."It's not the be-all end-all of the case," Meidt said. "It's just one more piece of evidence. There's other evidence."Other evidence includes blood-stained floorboards from Giordano's apartment and DNA evidence vacuumed from the trunk of the car used to transport the victim's body to New York.
DiGirolamo, who is on house arrest after posting $1 million in bail, appeared in court yesterday to formally reject the state's plea offer and instead request that his case be scheduled for trial.He faces life in prison if convicted, which, under New Jersey laws, translates to about 68 years behind bars without parole. The state offered him a sentence of 30 years without parole in exchange for pleading guilty to Giordano's murder and helping investigators locate the pieces of her body they have not recovered.
Dressed in a suit and appearing upbeat, DiGirolamo answered yes when Neafsy asked if he wanted to reject the plea offer and if he understood that what sentence he faced if convicted. "Innocent men don't plead guilty," Ballarotto said as he left court yesterday.
Giordano, who was carrying on an affair with the married DiGirolamo, was last seen alive June 7, 2007, while shopping for groceries in East Windsor with DiGirolamo and the couple's son, Michael DiGirolamo, then 11 months old. Two days later, the boy was found abandoned at a Delaware hospital. Friends of Giordano recognized the boy from a television news program and alerted authorities.
After returning from Italy, where he spent seven weeks after Giordano's disappearance, DiGirolamo surrendered to authorities in Delaware, and in November 2007 he pleaded guilty to abandoning Michael. DiGirolamo was sentenced to probation. Police charged DiGirolamo's friend, John A. Russo from Staten Island, with tampering with evidence for allegedly helping DiGirolamo clean up the bloody apartment and dump suitcases containing Giordano's body parts into a pond. In December, Russo applied for a pretrial intervention program for first-time offenders and is expected to testify against his former friend.