DiGirolamo remains free after posting $1 million bond
By Vic Monaco, Managing Editor
TRENTON The Millstone man accused of killing and dismembering his Hightstown mistress, Amy Giordano, has been indicted.
A Mercer County grand jury on Jan. 9 returned an indictment charging 34-year-old Rosario DiGirolamo with the murder of Ms. Giordano between June 7 and June 9, 2007.
Mr. DiGirolamo was charged in March in a two-count indictment with first-degree murder and fourth-degree tampering with evidence. He pleaded not guilty in April. If convicted, he could face a maximum sentence of life in prison.
The former employee of Conair in East Windsor was released from the Mercer County Correction Center on Nov. 26, after his family posted a $1 million bond. As a condition of his bail, he is restricted to his parents’ home in Brooklyn, N.Y. with an electronic bracelet around his ankle. Mr. DiGirolamo’s next court appearance will be an arraignment. No date has been scheduled.
His attorney, Jerome Ballarotto, expressed some relief this week and repeated his confidence that his client will be exonerated.
”We’ve been waiting a long time, with everybody been running around saying terrible things about us. It’s now time to stop the accusations and start the judicial process, and we look forward to the opportunity clear Rosario’s name,” he said.
”The evidence in this case will establish facts that are substantially different than the accusations that have been made by the prosecutor and others,” he added.
[vmo: easily cut for space: ]As soon as the arraignment is held, he explained, he gets access to the prosecutor’s file, “and then we conclude our investigation.”
The Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office said in April that Mr. DiGirolamo killed Ms. Giordano, 27, by hitting her on the head with a tool in her Mercer Street apartment and then dismembered her.
The murder suspect was taken into custody March 20 at his parents’ home by members of the U.S. Marshals Service New York/NewJersey Regional Fugitive Task Force, Trenton and New York Divisions, after a 10-month investigation. During that time, he went to Italy for several weeks before returning to the states to plead guilty to abandoning the couple’s baby boy outside a Newark, Del., hospital. For that offense, he was put on probation.
The boy, Michael DiGirolamo, who was 11 months old at the time of the incident, was unhurt. He was later adopted by a woman believed to be Rosario DiGirolamo’s sister, according to published reports.
Also indicted by the grand jury Jan. 9 was John A. Russo Jr., 44, of Staten Island, N.Y. Mr. Russo, a former close friend of Mr. DiGirolamo, is charged with one count of fourth-degree tampering with evidence. He is accused of helping Mr. DiGirolamo clean up the Hightstown apartment and suggesting a Staten Island pond as a site to dispose of Ms. Giordano’s remains.
Mr. Russo helped lead law enforcement officials to that pond, where some of Ms. Giordano’s remains were found in a suitcase that also contained photos of the baby boy.
If convicted, he could face a maximum sentence of 18 months in prison.
Mr. DiGirolamo’s wife, Maria DiMaggio, with whom he had parented another son, filed for divorce in the summer.
Prosecutor Joe Bocchini credited Detective James Francis of the prosecutor’s homicide unit, Detective Michael Rosica of the New Jersey State Police, Detective Benjamin Miller of the Hightstown Police Department and Detective Jose Gonclaves of the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office with the successful investigation leading to Mr. DiGirolamo’s arrest and indictment. Assistant Prosecutor Tom Meidt, chief of the Homicide Unit, presented the case to the grand jury.

