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Overturned murder conviction casts doubt on Pirro legacy
By Bruce Golding
The Journal News
(Original Publication: February 18, 2007)
In her 2003 memoir, Jeanine Pirro recounted some of the grim tales of murder, pedophilia and domestic violence that made her a nationally known prosecutor and advocate for victims' rights.
"What I'm about is settling scores," she wrote in a chapter of her book.
But now, little more than a year after leaving office as Westchester's district attorney, a reversal in one of her signature cases has raised questions about the rules by which Pirro played.
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.
Brieant found that prosecutors botched DiSimone's case by failing to disclose, before trial, evidence that pointed to another possible culprit in the 1994 stabbing of college student Louis Balancio.
The judge said it "raised very serious issues of actual innocence, clearly arising to the level of reasonable doubt as to whether DiSimone ... was the killer."
Pirro and her assistants who tried the case - Clement Patti, now a lawyer in private practice, and Steven Bender, who remains a county prosecutor - have declined to discuss Brieant's ruling.
Pirro responds
But on Friday, Pirro issued a written statement that said: "Louis Balancio's killer was brought to justice based on the evidence unearthed during an exhaustive, six-year investigation conducted in conjunction with the U.S. Attorney's office, the FBI and the Yonkers Police Department. It is outrageous that a man convicted of his brutal murder may be freed based on evidence that was considered and rejected by the trial judge and a jury."
Manhattan appeals lawyer Roger Adler, chairman of the state Bar Association's Criminal Justice Section, said there was an "indelible stain" on Pirro's legacy.
"The system of justice operates on the assumption that prosecutors' first goal is to see that justice is done," Adler said. "This is really the nightmare of the criminal-justice system: the defendant who gets railroaded."
But White Plains lawyer and political strategist Michael Edelman, a longtime Pirro supporter, said the totality of her record - especially her work combatting domestic violence - guaranteed that her reputation would be that of a trail-blazing crime fighter.
Legacy of fighting abuse
"She took the notion that spousal abuse is unacceptable, and that abuse of children in the home is unacceptable, and she taught other district attorneys how to prosecute those cases. I think that will be her legacy," Edelman said.
Edelman, a former county prosecutor under Pirro's predecessor, Carl Vergari, also said "there hasn't been a district attorney in the history of the United States that hasn't had one or two problems."
DiSimone's conviction was supposed to impose justice for the slaying of Balancio during a gang brawl outside a Yonkers bar Feb. 4, 1994. Authorities said that more than two dozen people witnessed the killing, but refused to cooperate because members of the Tanglewood Boys gang had connections to the Mafia.
Pirro's office pressured the witnesses by publicizing their arrests in subsequent, unrelated crimes, and also convicted three other men - including a reputed Lucchese family captain - for dumping clothing bloodied in the fight. She lobbied county legislators for $50,000 in supplemental funds to pursue the probe and convened a special grand jury that indicted DiSimone, son of another reputed Lucchese family member.
Pirro mentioned the case while discussing highlights from her career as district attorney at a farewell dinner in December 2005, and a courtroom sketch of lead prosecutor Patti in action during DiSimone's trial hangs prominently in his law office.
DiSimone, 40, will be freed from Green Haven prison in Stormville on Feb. 26 unless prosecutors persuade an appeals court to delay Brieant's order while they argue for another trial. A spokesman for Westchester District Attorney Janet DiFiore said papers were filed with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan last week.
Worried about 'headlines'
White Plains defense lawyer Bruce Bendish, a former county prosecutor who headed the Homicide Bureau under Vergari, said Brieant's ruling publicly confirmed what many in the law-enforcement community already knew: that Pirro's administration "was more concerned with headlines and self-aggrandizement than with the substance of good prosecution."
Bendish also pointed to comments Pirro made during appearances on the Fox News Channel in December when she blasted the district attorney in the since-dropped Duke University rape case for withholding DNA evidence that cleared the suspects.
"If she would adhere to her rules, rather than just pontificate on some TV show, our system would work a lot better," he said.
A similar sentiment came from retired Westchester County Judge Kenneth H. Lange, whom Pirro criticized in her book over a 2003 trial in which prosecutors failed to win the death penalty for a Yonkers triple murder. Lange said Pirro's attempt to have him force a jury decision on capital punishment was comparable to the DiSimone case.
"I knew her for 20 years," Lange said. "I think she devoted more and more of her talent and energy to an agenda of self-promotion, occasionally to the detriment of her public responsibilities."
New Rochelle radio-station owner William O'Shaughnessy, a vocal Pirro admirer and supporter, said, "Jeanine's reputation as a zealous, dynamic, take-no-prisoners prosecutor remains intact."
"I think that the vast majority of Westchester residents still hold her in high regard," he said. "Maybe she's a little too dynamic, both professionally and sartorially, and that's her problem. But would she do something against the canon of ethics? I would absolutely doubt it."
Thoroughness questioned
White Plains defense lawyer Peter Goodrich, a former high-ranking Westchester prosecutor who headed Vergari's Trial Division, said he found Deskovic's allegations at least as troubling as the misconduct in the DiSimone case.
"My question is, why wouldn't you have sent the DNA no matter what?" he said. "Even on 'Cold Case' on television, they follow up on leads that were not available back then, and they just never did it. ... Everyone holds her out as a hard-nosed prosecutor, and it chips away at how thorough maybe they really were being."
Despite the publicity that Pirro generated during the investigation of Balancio's slaying, DiSimone's case was not among those Pirro included in her memoir, "To Punish and Protect: One D.A.'s Fight Against a System That Coddles Criminals."
Pirro's co-author, Catherine Whitney, said the cases in the book "were spotlighted to make various points. ... We were putting the primary focus on domestic-violence and family issues."
Whitney, a Rockland County resident who was recently named to the Grand View village board, said she hadn't known about DiSimone until learning about the reversal of his conviction. But she said "every public record involves positives and negatives," and any assessment that included "a sense of history and appreciation" would be kind to Pirro.
"In my opinion from observing her over many years, Jeanine was always an extremely hard-working and dedicated prosecutor and public servant, and I hope that's what her legacy is, frankly," Whitney said. "She deserves it."