$1 million bond releases accused killer
By Vic Monaco, Managing Editor
Rosario DiGirolamo, the man charged with killing and dismembering Amy Giordano in her Hightstown apartment, will eat Thanksgiving dinner with his family after spending eight months in jail.
The Millstone man was released Wednesday from the Mercer County Correction Center in Hopewell after $1 million was posted by a Trenton bail bond company.
His attorney, Jerome Ballarotto, said his client’s release is the result of a “very supportive family” coming up with the bail money.
”They posted the whole thing. He’s out on bail,” he said. “He has a very supportive family, a mother, a father, siblings. … They marshaled all of their assets and they got him out.”
Mr. Ballarotto declined to elaborate on how the family got together the large sum of money and said they and his client are continuing to decline interviews. He also declined to comment on any restrictions placed on his client while out on bail except to say, “He’s going to be with his family.”
He said he does not know if that get-together will reunite his client with the young son he fathered with Ms. Giordano and later abandoned outside a Delaware hospital before allegedly killing the 27-year-old mother in June 2007.
Mr. DiGirolamo’s family lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
”As conditions of his bail, he will be confined to his parents’ home in Brooklyn and monitored by an electronic tracking device,” said Casey DeBlasio, spokeswoman for the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office. “I am not aware of any other conditions. Our office remains in possession of his passport.”
Mr. DiGirolamo, Ms. Giordano’s married boyfriend, fled to Italy for several weeks before returning to the states to plead guilty to abandoning his then 11-month-old son, Michael DiGirolamo, outside a hospital in Newark, Del. in June 2007. For that offense, he was put on probation.
The boy has since reportedly been adopted by a woman believed to be Mr. DiGirolamo’s sister.
Mr. DiGirolamo, who faces 30 years to life in prison, has pleaded not guilty to murdering his mistress.
He has not yet been indicted.
”It seems kind of long,” Mr. Ballarotto said in regard to the indictment process, “but we don’t have any control over it. If it went much longer I guess we could file a motion.”
Ms. DeBlasio said eight months is not unusually long for a murder charge to be presented to a grand jury, and her office expects that to happen before the end of the year.
Mr. Ballarotto said Mr. DiGirolamo — who was 33 at the time of his arrest and a former employee of Conair in East Windsor — is in good shape after his incarceration.
”He’s ready to defend himself,” he said when asked about Mr. DiGirolamo’s condition. “He’s not beaten down at all. He’s surprisingly healthy, both mentally and physically and, frankly, he’s anxious for his day in court.”
Asked if there is anything new to report on his own work on the case over the last eight months, Mr. Ballarotto said, “Nothing I can comment on but I can say his defense is active.”
The Prosecutor’s Office says Mr. DiGirolamo hit Ms. Giordano on the head with a tool before dismembering her. Some of Ms. Giordano’s remains — minus her head, according to published reports and a family member of Ms. Giordano — were found in March in a Staten Island pond. A friend of Mr. DiGirolamo led law enforcement officials there. The remains were found in a suitcase that also contained photos of the couple’s baby boy, according to the prosecutor.
Ms. Giordano’s cousin, Stephen Fishbaum of Marlboro, when told of Mr. DiGirolamo’s release on bail, said, “The guy is still going to go to jail. He’s not going nowhere.”
Mr. Fishbaum previously said he feared that Mr. DiGirolamo would be reunited with the son he abandoned, and added Wednesday, “I’m sure he will be.”

