Recanting witness to resume testimony today in deli shooting

By JONATHAN BANDLER
THE JOURNAL NEWS

(Original Publication: November 20, 2007)

WHITE PLAINS - After a bizarre end to yesterday's session, testimony is expected to resume this morning from a witness who has recanted his testimony from the 1997 murder trial of off-duty NYPD officer Richard DiGuglielmo.

Lawyers, relatives of DiGuglielmo and victim Charles Campbell and others sat for nearly two hours waiting for Westchester County Judge Rory Bellantoni before court officers announced the session was adjourned for the day.

The judge did not believe it was appropriate for him to take the bench after his blood pressure soared during a lengthy phone conversation with Administrative Judge Francis Nicolai about an unrelated matter. The conversation began at the end of the lunch break after Bellantoni received a letter he considered disrespectful from a member of Nicolai's staff. He said the judge then berated him at length.

The two recently were among six candidates for state Supreme Court. Nicolai won one of three seats. Bellantoni did not.

After the argument, Nicolai refused to discuss the matter, saying only that it was a "frank and open conversation about courthouse matters."

Court staff heard the yelling on the phone but it could not be heard in the courtroom. The judge said afterward he could not settle down enough to resume the hearing.

DiGuglielmo was convicted of second-degree murder for the shooting of Charles Campbell on Oct. 3, 1996, in the parking lot of the Venice Deli on Ashford Avenue in Dobbs Ferry. Campbell had struck DiGuglielmo's father with a baseball bat after a confrontation over Campbell's parking in the lot while getting pizza across the street. The jury rejected DiGuglielmo's claim that he was defending his father.

Yesterday morning , Michael Dillon, a cable technician who happened by the scene that night, said his original account to detectives on the night of the shooting - that Campbell was still swinging his bat when he was shot - was accurate. He said detectives took him to headquarters three more times that week before he changed his statement to indicate Campbell was backing off and the shooting did not appear to be justified.

That was the testimony he gave at trial as well. The defense cross-examined Dillon about the change during the trial - but say now they would have done so more extensively if they had known about the intervening interviews.