Icy weather delays manslaughter sentence another week
By Doug Carman, Staff Writer
TRENTON The man who admitted to the June 2007 slaying of his mistress in her Hightstown apartment last month will wait one more week before his fate is made official.
Judge Edward Neafsey postponed Rosario DiGirolamo’s sentencing hearing due to the icy weather, assistant prosecutor Angelo Onofri told the Herald. The hearing, originally scheduled for 9 a.m. Wednesday, was moved to Feb. 9.
Mr. DiGirolamo pleaded guilty to the 2007 killing of Amy Giordano last month. He made a deal with prosecutors to take to an aggravated manslaughter charge at a Jan. 3 pretrial hearing, avoiding more serious first-degree murder and tampering with evidence charges in connection to the 27-year-old’s death three years ago.
Mr. DiGirolamo, 35, was expected to be sentenced to 25 years in prison as outlined in his plea deal. By law, he would have to serve 85 percent, or 21 years and 3 months, before he is eligible for parole. Time already served will count toward that sentence.
Mr. DiGirolamo remained in the Mercer County Correction Center, where he’s been locked up since accepting the deal and having his $1 million bond revoked.
He and his attorney, Jerome Ballarotto, appeared set to take the case to trial last month. But in late December, prosecutors uncovered a damning Google search on Mr. DiGirolamo’s computer for “martial arts lethal blows to the back of the head” that was made a week before Ms. Giordano’s disappearance.
After Mr. Ballarotto’s motion to suppress the Google search failed just as his motion to keep a hand saw found in Mr. DiGirolamo’s garage from being presented at the trial was denied in November the defense took the deal.
In court that day, Mr. DiGirolamo told Judge Neafsey that he and Ms. Giordano were arguing in her apartment, when she lunged at his groin with a pry bar.
Mr. DiGirolamo said he dodged her attack and struck her once in the back of the head with a hammer, sending her to the ground. He described a large amount of blood coming from her head, and told the court he checked her pulse and realized she was dead.
Investigators found Ms. Giordano’s dismembered torso and part of her pelvis in a suitcase at Clay Pit Pond in Staten Island, N.Y. in April 2008, around the same time Mr. DiGirolamo was arrested and charged with her killing. The rest of her body was never found.
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