News & Updates
Read the article on Richie in Post magazine.
November 26, 2008
My Best Wishes To All For A Happy Thanksgiving.
I have been home 68 days and enjoying every moment.
Each day is a gift to be opened, I have so much to be thankful for. For the first time in many years I am looking forward to a wonderful holiday with my family and friends.
I want to thank all who have supported me throughout this ordeal. Your prayers and well wishes have been greatly appreciated.
May your Thanksgiving be as joyful as I know my first Thanksgiving home with my family will be.
With Fondest Regards,,
Richard DiGuglielmo
October 10, 2008
Appellate Division, Second Department denies DA's motion for stay. Read it here.
September 26, 2008
Read Richie's opposition to the DA's motion for a stay
September 25, 2008
September 20, 2008 RICHIE FREE
DA to appeal. Read more here.
Watch the News 12 report here.
September 18, 2008
CONVICTION VACATED--JUDGE ORDERS IMMEDIATE RELEASE!
Read the decision here.
Read Jonathan Bandler's coverage in the Journal News here.
May 8, 2008
100 DAYS
That's how long it's been since the Judge received the final briefs. Of course, that's on top of the 10 years and 99 days Richie, his family and friends, and the public have been waiting for justice in this case.
January 28, 2008
NO HEARING ON JANUARY 30TH
Instead of having oral arguments in court, Judge Rory Bellantoni has asked both sides to submit their final arguments in written briefs.
READ RICHARD BLASSBERG'S COVERAGE IN THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
The Court Report: "Richard DiGuglielmo: Setting the Facts Straight" - January 10, 2008 (PDF)
The Advocate: "When Truth and Justice are Overwhelmed by Celebrity Worship" - January 17, 2008 (PDF)
HOLIDAY GREETINGS FROM RICHIE:
I would like to personally thank everyone for their support and interest in my case. Your cards and letters filled with well wishes and encouragement are sincerely appreciated.
My next hearing, on January 30th, is fast approaching. I look forward to it guardedly and am counting on your continued support. It is because of public interest and pressure that wrongful convictions are turned around. I pray to God that the truth will finally be recognized and I am granted a new trial.
My best wishes to all for a Joyous Holiday Season and all the best in 2008. Happy New Year!
With Fond Regards,
Richard DiGuglielmo
December 6, 2007
READ RICHARD BLASSBERG'S COVERAGE OF THE HEARING IN THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN:
Eyewitness Who Refused to Lie Under Pressure Exposes District Attorney and Dobbs Ferry Police - 12/13/07 (PDF)
"By All Means, Let's Open Pandora's Box" - 12/6/07 (PDF)
"The Wheels of Justice Continue to Turn for Richard DiGuglielmo" - 11/29/07 (PDF)
December 5, 2007
ORAL ARGUMENTS SET FOR JANUARY 30, 2008
Yesterday Judge Rory Bellantoni adjourned the hearing and scheduled oral arguments for January 30, 2008.
December 3, 2007
EYEWITNESS JAMES WHITE TESTIFIES
James White, who, like Michael Dillon, says police pressured him to change his story, testified today. Read the coverage in The Journal News here.
November 28, 2007
HEARING TO RESUME MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, AT 10:00 A.M. WITH TESTIMONY OF EYEWITNESS JAMES WHITE
November 27, 2007
JUDGE WANTS TO HEAR FROM OTHER WITNESSES WHOSE ACCOUNTS OF SHOOTING CHANGED OVER TIME
Judge Rory Bellantoni will hear testimony from James White (click here to read his recent statement claiming police coercion) and Kevin O'Donnell, eyewitness Michael Dillon's colleague who also witnessed the shooting. (Read more about O'Donnell's conflicting statements here.)
The hearing will resume as soon as White can get here from Florida, where he now resides. Judge Bellantoni would like him to testify tomorrow if possible.
For more on today's events, read the report in The Journal News by Jonathan Bandler, who has covered the case for years.
November 26, 2007
JUDGE CONCERNED WITH THREE WITNESS'S ACCOUNTS
Today, Assistant District Attorney Patricia Murphy, who prosecuted the DiGuglielmo case, and Lt. James Guarnieri of the Dobbs Ferry Police Department, testified that eyewitness Michael Dillon was not pressured to change his account of the events of October 3rd, 1996.
However, Judge Rory Bellantoni wondered why the police charged Richard DiGuglielmo with murder just hours after Dillon, Kevin O'Donnell and James White all said Campbell was swinging the bat and thus a direct threat to DiGuglielmo's father. "How many witnesses would it take for you to be concerned? Isn't any of this the least bit troubling to you?" the judge asked the prosecutors.
Click here to read James White's statement of June 5, 2007, in which he describes police pressuring him to change his story.
November 21, 2007
DA's MOTION TO DISMISS DENIED, HEARING TO RESUME MONDAY
A motion by the DA to dismiss the defense's application as insufficient was denied. The hearing will resume Monday, November 26th, at 10:00 a.m.
November 20, 2007
EYEWITNESS HOLDS UP WELL UNDER CROSS EXAMINATION
To say Michael Dillon is understated is an understatement. He comes off as one guy who gives you nothing but the truth. No more, no less. Today, like yesterday, he was meticulous and consistent in his answers, always careful to distinguish between his state of mind at various points in time. If he doesn't remember something, he says he doesn't remember. At times the truth seemed like his life raft, the one thing he could rely on to get him through a relentless and adversarial cross-examination that was more like a game of gotcha than a search for the truth.
In his understated way, Dillon described today’s cross-examination, as well as the police who interviewed him for hours on three or four separate occasions in ‘96, as “businesslike.” But Dillon was clear that he found the process and the setting, both of the ’96 interviews and today’s cross-examination, “intimidating.”
The question is: what made Dillon change his story 180 degrees after those interviews with the police in ‘96? The more you know about it, the more the episode reminds you of a false confession, which we know takes place in one-fourth of wrongful convictions. Just ask Westchester's own Jeffrey Deskovic, a false-confession exoneree who has attended this week’s hearings. To learn how false confessions happen, read the report Westchester Distric Attorney Janet DiFiore ordered on the Deskovic case.
Imagine the scene with the sound off, when police went unannounced to pick up the 20-year-old Dillon, escorting him into the back of a patrol car and taking him down to the police station and sitting him across from detectives in what ADA Tim Ward took great care to call an “interview” room, but which we know is an interrogation room. In an interrogation, the goal is to get a suspect to say he’s guilty. The goal of today’s cross-examination clearly was to get Dillon to state that his October 3rd statement was false and his testimony was true. What was the goal of the police in their interviews of Dillon in the interrogation room? Was it to seek the truth or to win the answer the DA was going for today?
Among the lessons of false confessions are that they don’t require physical force to be coerced, that there are all sorts of psychological ways they can happen, and that we all have our limits, beyond which we’ll tell anyone what they want to hear. It stands to reason it would take less to influence an eyewitness to change his story than a suspect to implicate himself, because there's less directly at stake for the eyewitness. As to the question of whether an answer was forced in a specific instance, as Judge Bellantoni said in an exchange with ADA Ward, “It depends how you use the word ‘force.’” What would seem to matter more than what police did or didn’t do is whether Dillon is believable when he says he felt influenced by police into changing his story, to say nothing of the legal and ethical questions of whether these interviews should have been disclosed to the defense prior to trial.
In this context, Dillon’s unusual answer--"Not yes or no."-- to the question of whether his testimony was truthful makes perfect sense. Because, as a lot of false confession exonerees will tell you, Dillon says that following the multiple interviews with police he became at times unsure of what was true, acknowledging also that he may have felt “locked into” his testimony.
Immediately after the shooting, Dillon was sure what had happened, when he told the media and the police, "The black male was still swinging the bat at the older male" and "It's self-defense from what I saw." After hours of testimony, Dillon’s demeanor, as much as his answers, convinces you he told it as he saw it immediately after the incident on October 3rd, 1996.
November 19, 2007
HEARING OPENS -- WITNESS STICKS TO HIS ORIGINAL STORY
The hearing to determine whether Dobbs Ferry Police coerced a key eyewitness into changing his account of the shooting of Charles Campbell, thus unfairly influencing the trial of Richard DiGuglielmo, began today.
Witness Michael Dillon stuck to his original story, the account he gave to the media, and then to police, at the scene immediately following the incident, when he said, "You see your father getting beaten with a bat, you got to do something about it. So it's self-defense from what I saw."
Dillon then told the court how the police visited him, unannounced, on two separate occasions, including at his job, to re-interview him. Each time, police drove Dillon in a patrol car to the police station, where they interviewed him in a bare room of the type used for interrogation. Each time, Dillon stuck to his story. Then, again, on the evening of October 7th, police drove Dillon to the station for another interview. Finally, after midnight, feeling "intimidated" and "tired of talking to them," Dillon signed a statement he thought was "up to their satisfaction." Dillon said the police wrote the statement, using terms he would not.
Read the coverage in the Journal News here.
The hearing is scheduled to resume Tuesday at 10:15 a.m.
October 14, 2007
HEARING RESCHEDULED FOR NOVEMBER 19
All sides finally agreed they're ready to proceed, the previously scheduled hearing--to determine whether the Dobbs Ferry Police coerced a key eyewitness into changing his account of the events leading up to the shooting of Charles Campbell--will take place on Monday, November 19th in White Plains. Details will be posted as available.
September 20, 2007
HEARING RESCHEDULED FOR OCTOBER 16
The hearing scheduled for September 24th (see below) has been rescheduled for October 16th due to scheduling conflicts.
July 26, 2007
JUDGE ORDERS HEARING ON KEY EYEWITNESS
Eyewitness Michael Dillon Changed Story
After Police Interviews Not Disclosed to Defense
Westchester County Judge Rory Bellantoni yesterday ordered a hearing for September 24, 2007, to determine whether the Dobbs Ferry Police coerced eyewitness Michael Dillon into changing his account of the events leading up to the shooting of Charles Campbell.
Dillon initially told reporters and police at the scene that Richard DiGuglielmo clearly shot Charles Campbell in self-defense, but changed his story 180 degrees at trial. He now says the police pressured him into altering his story, questioning him on several occasions and keeping him for hours. The defense argues that not only did police coerce Dillon into changing his story, but they did not disclose to the defense three interviews they conducted with Dillon on October 4, October 5 and October 6, 1996.
Judge Bellantoni will also review evidence that one of the jurors had an undisclosed criminal record, an obvious problem in a case involving a law-enforcement officer.
Read the Journal News story here.
Read the defense filings on these matters here.
To read about how Dillon's story changed over time, and to compare his statements at the scene and after being reinterviewed by the police, click here.
July 2, 2007
Official Report: DA Pirro Refused DNA tests for Innocent Man
The new Westchester DA has released a report entitled "Report on the Conviction of Jeffrey Deskovic." Last year Deskovic, who was convicted in 1990 for the rape and murder of his high school classmate, was exonerated and freed through DNA testing. In a recent article summing up the report, The Journal News writes, "According to the panel, DiFiore's predecessor in office, Jeanine Pirro, had 'refused' to consent to run a database check, which only added years to Deskovic's time in jail."
To read the full report, click on the link on the DA's home page.
June 7, 2007
February 19, 2007 "Overturned Murder Conviction Casts Doubt on Pirro Legacy"
The headline above the article in yesterday's Journal News speaks volumes. A year after Ms. Pirro left office, the article states, "a reversal in one of her signature cases has raised questions about the rules by which Pirro played." The reference is to the DiSimone case, but the real question raised in the article is whether we're looking at a pattern of misconduct that spans more than one case:
"This month, U.S. District Judge Charles Brieant unconditionally overturned the murder conviction of reputed gangster Anthony DiSimone, citing 'egregious' misconduct in a trial that Pirro had called a long and hard-fought win over organized crime.
"The ruling came months after former inmate Jeffrey Deskovic said Pirro refused to test DNA evidence that last year exonerated him in a 1989 Peekskill rape and murder."
It's all well and good to question Ms. Pirro's legacy, but there is more at stake than one prosecutor's, or politician's, legacy, namely, people's lives. Given the questions raised "about the rules by which Pirro played," isn't the next logical question obvious? Were more innocent people sent to prison on her watch? Wouldn't a true commitment to justice require a reexamination of the prosecutor's methods in the other controversial cases in the Pirro era?
February 8, 2007
Federal Judge Overturns DiSimone Conviction Due to Withholding of Evidence by DA Pirro's Office
Today's Journal News reports that a federal judge has overturned the conviction of Anthony DiSimone in the Louis Balancio slaying, citing "very serious" evidence withheld by former District Attorney Jeanine Pirro's office. The withheld evidence included a statement given to police that someone else had committed the murder. Former prosecutor and Pace Professor Bennett Gershman told the paper, "It doesn't get any worse than this," and called the DA's handling of the case "as outrageous an example of prosecutorial misconduct as there is." Prosecutorial misconduct, by the way, is one of this former prosecutor's academic specialties. "This shows that she's not a professional prosecutor. It shows that she's about winning at all costs and breaking the rules to win," said Gershman.
Prosecutorial misconduct by the DA in Richie's case is relevant news indeed. The above events took place around the same time period as Richie's case (mid- to late 90s) and involved the same sort of misconduct Richie is charging in his new appeal, that is, the withholding of evidence likely to be exculpatory. Richie's appeal maintains that this evidence--tape recordings allegedly made of eyewitness statements to police--would have been crucial because it would have contradicted the statements eyewitnesses are now recanting as manipulated by law enforcement agents.
January 24, 2007
Journal News Article on Two Recanting Witnesses in DiGuglielmo Case
A 2,000 word article in yesterday's Journal News goes into great depth on new affidavits from what is now two eyewitnesses to the shooting. Both witnesses now say that police pressured them, in reinterviews, into changing their initial accounts of the shooting from self-defense to a version supporting the prosecution's theory of the crime.
Much is made in the article of the claim by both witnesses that they were tape recorded. Yet, the prosecution never turned over any tapes to the defense. If there were tapes that were never turned over, the defense believes the convictions should be thrown out because of at least a "reasonable possibility" the tapes could have influenced the jury's verdict.
Whether the interviews were recorded or not is a big question. What is not debatable is the value of tape-recording in the gathering of facts to arrive at the truth in criminal investigations. With DNA science having proven that one-fourth of wrongful convictions are the result of false confessions, it is telling that one of the recanting witnesses described his second, extended go-around with police not as an "interview" but as an "interrogation." If you've read any descriptions of false confessions, they look a lot like eyewitness Michael Dillon's description of his "reinterview":
"I was so worn out and exhausted by the past few days of police interrogation that I didn't read it carefully before signing it and I did not object or change wording and phrases in the statement that were not my words and did not accurately reflect my memory."
To read Richie's new 440 motion on the recanting witnesses and the alleged withholding by prosecutors of evidence in his case, click here.
January 3, 2007
Key Eyewitness Recants Testimony in DiGuglielmo Case
Eyewitness Michael Dillon, who initially told reporters and police at the scene of the shooting that Richard DiGuglielmo shot Charles Campbell in self-defense, but changed his story at trial, has signed an affidavit with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. At the scene of the shooting, Dillon told reporters and police that it was clearly self-defense: "You see your father getting beat with a bat, you gotta do something about it. So, its self-defense from what I saw." Now, in the affidavit, Dillon says that cops pressured him into altering his story, questioning him on several occasions and keeping him for hours.
To read the Daily News story, click here.
To read more about how Dillon and other witnesses changed their stories following "reinterviews" with the police, click here.
October 5, 2006
More Ethical Questions for Ms. Pirro, as the New York Post reports "Pirro Steered D.A. Contract to Kerik/She 'Worked for Favors' as Aide Fretted Over Ethics." Read the full story here.
October 3, 2006
Watch an interview with Richie videotaped by the Journal News. Read the article.
September 27, 2006
“Let me reiterate my disappointment with the United States attorney’s office for allowing an unethical overzealous prosecutor with a partisan political agenda using taxpayers’ money and public resources to pursue a baseless investigation into a marital situation and seek to affect the outcome of an election.”
-- Jeanine Pirro, without irony, quoted in The New York Times
New Appeal Filed for Richard DiGuglielmo
September 21, 2006
Richie's lawyer has filed a new appeal in his case. (Appeal PDF)
Meanwhile, former District Attorney Jeanine Pirro, who we believe racialized, in order to politicize, Richie's case, was in the news on September 20th. That was the day she canceled a press conference, at Ground Zero, to proclaim her belief in the death penalty in contrast to her opponent for Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo. We believe Ms. Pirro had no choice but to cancel the press conference due to breaking news of the DNA/false-confession exoneration of Jeffrey Deskovic, a man who might be, inconveniently for her as well as him, dead today if there were still a death penalty in New York.
Regarding Ms. Pirro's position on the death penalty, we'll take her at her word. What she consistently makes us question is her position on the truth. Mr. Deskovic angrily recounted to Newsday how he wrote to Ms. Pirro in 1997 after hearing she supported overturning wrongful convictions through DNA. Remarkably, according to Mr. Deskovic, Ms. Pirro didn't just ignore him but wrote him back "a very rude letter, the gist of which is, 'Mr. Deskovic, the DNA issue that you raise was considered by the jury which convicted you....There will be no prison interview.'"
In an article on September 22nd entitled "Dems Pile on Pirro in Wrong-Guy Case," the Daily News wrote, "More questions about Pirro's past performance cropped up yesterday at a small Manhattan rally for Richard DiGuglielmo Jr., a former NYPD cop jailed for fatally shooting a man after an altercation outside the DiGuglielmo family deli in Westchester County." Richie's mother, Rosemarie, told the paper, "I believe it was a political prosecution. I believe that it was a rush to judgment."
The other questions cropping up about Ms. Pirro lately, of course, concern her handling of the Deskovic case, about which Mr. Cuomo said, "I would enforce the law to the fullest extent so that justice is served to the guilty--and innocent New Yorkers are not put to death or wrongly sentenced to life in prison. Without this vital protection, we will continue to expose New Yorkers to future travesties of justice."
We'll second that, and given the many questions cropping up about Ms. Pirro's past performance, we believe an impartial review of possible past travesties of justice is in order as well.