LAST DANCE, LAST CHANCE - and Other True Cases

by Ann Rule

  The next day, Sedita received a message from Pat Finnerty and Special Agent Rick Martinez of the Career Criminal Task Force. They had information that Pignataro might be making a phone call between one and two that afternoon: a call about Letovich. This call was not, however, a secret to law enforcement. Pignataro thought he knew the true identity of the person he was about to call, but he was mistaken. They had inside information about almost everything Tony was doing.

  But the investigators didn’t know yet whether he had already forwarded money to someone, or was about to send the money, to carry out his plan to have Arnie Letovich killed.

  They moved quickly. Frank Sedita called the Erie County Holding Center and asked that the phone banks be visually monitored during the vital time period. If someone witnessed Tony at that time making a call, it would be additional backup for what was about to come down.

  While Anthony believed he had finally contacted a hit man who would carry out his wishes to eliminate the most potent witness against him in his upcoming trial, he was strolling right into a trap. There was no way either the D.A.’s office or the task force was going to let Letovich get a hot shot of heroin or a dose of rat poison.

  Luis Perez was with Tony when he made the call to the hit man that Luis had found for him. What Tony didn’t know was that the man at the other end of the phone line wasn’t a would-be killer hungry for $10,000. He was an Erie County deputy sheriff who spoke fluent Spanish.

  Deputy Pedro Pabone listened as Tony Pignataro described Letovich. “He’s skinny—looks like he has AIDS, lots of tattoos…one’s a Heroin King tattoo.”

  Tony spoke excellent school-taught Spanish, but he was at a loss for slang phrases in that language. Pabone, who was fluent in both textbook Spanish and street slang, could tell that Pignataro was not speaking in his native tongue. When he stumbled in getting his thought across, Tony turned to someone with him—Perez—and asked him in English to translate the words in Spanish. He was trying to say “goatee” to describe Arnie’s beard, but he didn’t know how. Pedro Pabone could hear another male voice telling Tony what phrase to say. There were several instances when Pignataro spoke in English as he asked for help.

  Perez had been transferred to the same pod—Echo Northeast—where Pignataro was.

  Sedita and Finnerty went to the Career Criminal Task Forces offices to talk with Deputy Pabone and Special Agent Martinez. They handed over a copy of the taped conversation in which Pignataro spelled out what he wanted Pabone to do to Letovich.

  “There may be a delivery to the 200 block of Massachusetts,” Pabone said. If Tony did have someone who would arrange for the first $5,000 to be paid for the hit, that was where it was supposed to be delivered. Pat Finnerty contacted postal authorities and asked them to put a hold on mail sent to that address.

  They halfway expected Lena Pignataro to drive up and leave an envelope behind a bush or in the mailbox, and they put a surveillance team on the address to watch, but no one appeared.

  Frank Sedita talked to Arnie Letovich and casually brought up the subject of tattoos, and Arnie mentioned that he had a Heroin King symbol, although Sedita hadn’t mentioned the name. Looking at him, the D.A. saw that Arnie did have a Christ-like appearance—more so now that he was free of drugs. He had come from drug court that day, he said, and his public defender had told him that an investigator from Tony Pignataro’s defense team had been fishing around in his court file. Arnie said his current address was in that file as well as the information about the location of the drug rehab facility he’d just left.

  Letovich’s public defender had moved quickly to have his file sealed.

  Armed with the audiotape of Tony Pignataro talking to what he believed was a murderer for hire, Frank Sedita called for a meeting with Joel Daniels. After he told Daniels that he might want to rethink going to court because of what the Career Criminal Task Force and the D.A.’s office had found out, Tony’s lawyer looked at him, surprised.

  “What are you talking about?” Daniels asked.

  “Your man’s going to be charged with conspiracy to commit murder,” Sedita answered.

  “What?”

  “I have it on tape.”

  The tape began to unwind, and two male voices filled the room. Daniels looked dubious while the conversation was in Spanish, but when Pignataro switched to English, his face sagged.

  “There’s no mistake whose voice that is,” Sedita said quietly.

  “Oh sh—…” Daniels couldn’t deny that it was Tony Pignataro on the tape—Tony setting up a murder for hire. Even the best defense attorney in the State of New York would have a tough time explaining that away.

  Pignataro had outfoxed himself, and he had lied to his own attorney. There would be no trial. After Joel Daniels spelled it out for him, Pignataro agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge. He even promised he would tell the D.A.’s office where he obtained the poison used in the attempted murder of his wife.

  When Debbie learned that Anthony had agreed to confess, it was literally an answer to her prayers. She had said a novena for nine days, praying that he would confess to save them all from another trial—and, perhaps, to lift a weight from his mortal soul.

  In September 2000, one year after Ralph and Lauren had gone to live with their uncle Carmine and aunt Patti, Judge Marjorie Mix finally allowed them to return to live in their mother’s home. She stipulated that Debbie’s mother, Caroline Rago, must remain in the home, too. Debbie was just thankful to have them home at last; she would have followed any restrictions Judge Mix imposed. She and the children loved her mother and were delighted to have her live with them.

  A month later, Debbie did something she never thought she could do. In October, she filed for divorce. Anthony was stunned. And worried. How many times had he reminded Debbie that nothing bad would happen as long as they stuck together? But even as Debbie started divorce proceedings, he was working hard to convince her that he still loved her, begging for her forgiveness and for a chance to rebuild their lives together.

  She still had to see her almost–ex-husband in the crowded corridors of the courthouse. On Lauren’s birthday, October 2, Anthony and Debbie passed in the hallway. He was in handcuffs, but he smiled and asked her to tell Lauren he would call her later with birthday wishes.

  During one of the dozens of hearings connected with the multitudinous charges against Anthony, Debbie and Shelly met someone else in the hallway: Arnie Letovich.

  “He came up to me and started to tell me that he was so sorry, that he’d done his best to protect me—” Debbie said.

  “And we were scared,” Shelly interrupted. “But not of him. We weren’t supposed to talk to any witnesses, so we kind of mumbled and hurried away.”

  “But that was nice of him,” Debbie said, of a man whose world was so alien to her own. “I do appreciate what he did. He may have saved my life.”

  Debbie had help from a lot of people she never expected to back her up. That fall of 2000, Debbie’s former brother-in-law, Allan Steinberg, who was now divorced from Anthony’s sister, Antoinette, organized a benefit to help her with house payments. Allan rented a fire hall, and donated food, a Chinese auction, and other enticements drew a crowd of people who showed their support of Debbie.

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  It was November 3, 2000, when Anthony Pignataro and Joel Daniels stood before Judge Mario Rossetti in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of Erie. District Attorney Frank Clark was there, too, and so were Frank Sedita and Carol Bridge. The assistant district attorneys were happy to know that Pignataro was about to be sentenced to prison, but it would have been more satisfying to see him go through the trial process. They had prepared for such a long time to prosecute Pignataro.

  For those who prosecute crime, nothing is predictable. Preparing for trial is akin to going into training for a major sporting event; memorizing all the techniques, the plays, and the plans; and getting suited up for the big game—only to have it called because of inclement wea
ther. Some trials go on for months or years, some end abruptly in days, and some never happen at all.

  When it came down to it, Pignataro was a paper tiger, unwilling to have all the details of his crimes spelled out in a trial and on the front page of the Buffalo News. That incriminating tape would have been played on every radio and television station in Buffalo and Erie County, and Anthony didn’t want that to happen.

  Claudia Ewing from WGRZ TV, Channel 2, was in Judge Rossetti’s courtroom with her film crew, hoping to videotape the proceedings. The defense didn’t want her there, and Frank Sedita said simply, “The People have no position, Your Honor.”

  Judge Rossetti, bound by New York State law, denied Ewing’s request.

  Frank Sedita explained that it was his understanding that Anthony Pignataro was going to withdraw his not guilty plea to the original charges against him and plead guilty to attempted assault in the first degree, a lesser offense included in Count 2 of his indictment.

  His guilty plea would be his admission that he had intended to cause serious physical injury to another person using a dangerous “instrument” (specifically, arsenic poison) and that person was his wife, Deborah Pignataro. The rest of the counts against him would be consolidated and dismissed.

  But there were several conditions that Pignataro had to agree to: he had to withdraw all motions made to date, agree to waive his right to appeal, and admit that he was a second felony offender.

  Frank Sedita had met with Debbie, and this plea bargain met with her approval. “Your Honor,” Sedita said, “myself and Ms. Bridge urge the Court to accept the plea disposition.”

  The ex-Dr. Anthony Pignataro stood before the judge in handcuffs, no longer swaggering in the courtroom. He said, “Yes, sir” and “No, sir.”

  It must have been humiliating for him to have Judge Rossetti ask him if he had graduated from high school and if he could read and write English, but he answered only a meek “Yes,” respectfully. He said he understood what it meant to plead guilty, and he understood his rights. He knew he had a right to a trial by a judge or a jury, and to confront witnesses against him. But he was afraid of what his sentence might be.

  “Do you understand, therefore…that the Court is restricted to a determinate five years up to a determinate fifteen years…as a second felony felon?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  The judge explained that he had as yet made no commitment one way or the other.

  “Did you,” Judge Rossetti began, “on or before June 30 and August 10 of 1999 attempt with intent to cause physical injury by use of poison, that is, arsenic, attempt to cause the injury by preparing some food for your wife and having her consume that food?”

  “Once, yes, Your Honor.”

  Anthony was again downplaying his crimes, admitting to less than the truth. Judge Rossetti didn’t comment. Pignataro admitted that the poisoning had happened in Debbie’s home in West Seneca.

  “And you knew at that time, did you not, that the use of such poison, arsenic, could cause serious physical injury to your wife?” Rossetti continued.

  “At that time, I did not know it was arsenic. I knew it was harmful.”

  “You knew it was harmful?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you attempt to use it with the intent to cause serious physical injury?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “Nobody forcing you to say that—is that correct?”

  “No, sir.”

  Judge Rossetti explained to Anthony that he would base his sentencing decision on documentation from Joel Daniels, a presentence memorandum, and any other documentation and letters he might receive. Any sentence would have to run consecutively with the sentence he was currently serving for probation violation.

  Anthony pleaded guilty. His sentencing date was set for January 2001. There was no bail. He would spend Thanksgiving and Christmas behind bars.

  Two days later, Erie County District Attorney Frank Clark broke the long silence of his office and spoke for his staff about the theory they had developed in Anthony’s crimes against Debbie. Heretofore, Frank Sedita, Carol Bridge, Chuck Craven, and Pat Finnerty had agreed with Clark that the less information the public knew about Anthony Pignataro’s game plan, the better.

  Now the “Poisoned Plot” headline swept across the final edition of the Buffalo News.

  Characterizing Pignataro’s thinking as fiendishly clever, Frank Clark said his office had never felt that Debbie was poisoned for something as mundane as insurance money or even to set her husband free to be with another woman. It appeared that Anthony Pignataro had a far more complicated motive. He had hoped to show that anyone’s wife could die in surgery—even his own.

  Anthony had taken Debbie to the hospital in the third week in July and had agreed with her doctor’s tentative diagnosis of pancreatitis. But tests didn’t back that up. After she returned home, Pignataro had almost insisted that she undergo gallbladder surgery. A cholecystectomy is not a dangerous operation for most people, but, in Debbie’s weakened condition, she probably would have died. Indeed, the D.A.’s team had lined up Debbie’s doctors as witnesses who would testify that she would have been unlikely to survive.

  “We now think,” Clark said, “he was lobbying for that surgery with her physicians because he thought she wouldn’t survive it. Then her arsenic poisoning would never have been discovered. And if she had died in surgery, we think he believed that would be vindication in the death during surgery of [Sarah Smith].”

  Carol Bridge added, “Then he could say, ‘Look, this could happen to anybody. I was a doctor practicing my trade, and it happened to me.’”

  Pignataro’s motives were many and interwoven, the prosecutors said, designed to take care of a number of his problems. First and foremost, he wanted his medical license back. Whoever had to be sacrificed to accomplish that didn’t matter. As always, he wanted the very best out of life for himself.

  Rumors and misinterpretation of lab tests had abounded, making the lay public believe that Ralph and Lauren Pignataro had been poisoned, too. But they never had, save perhaps for the small amount of chicken noodle soup that Lauren had eaten. The prosecutors stressed that the children had only the normal level of arsenic in their systems.

  Many people had asked them why a medical doctor would try to kill his wife with arsenic and hope to get away with it.

  Frank Sedita pointed out that tests for arsenic poisoning are not normally given in autopsies. “Historically, when defendants are prosecuted for arsenic poisoning, they usually have racked up a number of victims—not just one.

  “This is the first arsenic case I know of,” Sedita told reporters, “where there is only one victim; there are usually multiple victims before anyone gets suspicious.”

  And that is true. In fiction and in true crime, the prototype of an arsenic poisoner is the “Black Widow,” a woman of a certain age who feeds arsenic to a series of husbands and boyfriends, or to the poor and helpless aged placed in her care. When the whole history becomes known and there are too many bodies, too many insurance payoffs, and too many instances of a weeping widow, then the poisoner falls under suspicion.

  The Erie County prosecutor’s staff had built a very solid circumstantial evidence case against Anthony Pignataro—one that almost any reasonable person might agree with—but they knew that Debbie Pignataro and her children didn’t wish a vendetta on her husband and their father. They just wanted him to go away and let them live their lives.

  25

  But, of course, Anthony Pignataro didn’t go away. As meek as he was in front of Judge Rossetti, he was already working to assure himself of a relatively light sentence. He had heard the judge say that letters and documents could make a difference in his sentence, and he figured that Debbie and their children would be the most impressive if they were to come forward and plead for him.

  He was barely chastened when Family Court Judge Marjorie C. Mix finally made a ruling on the issue of the alleged neglect of R
alph and Lauren by Debbie and Anthony Pignataro. Judge Mix announced her decision only six days after Anthony pleaded guilty to poisoning Debbie. Although Debbie was found innocent of the charges, Mix convicted Anthony of child neglect.

  “You are a miserable human being,” she intoned, “who failed everybody. You have done something that is so wrong. You have destroyed your life and inflicted incredible physical and psychological pain on your wife.”

  Bleak revelations kept surfacing. After Anthony pleaded guilty, Debbie got a phone call from a neighbor who asked to come talk to her.

  “She sat down and started to cry,” Debbie said. “She begged me for forgiveness. She said that Anthony had called her all the time and finally convinced her that I had deliberately poisoned myself. He wanted her to wear a wire and try to get something on me. She was so sorry, but all I could think of was how she had been brutal to me.”

  The woman said that Anthony was now asking her to find out how much time Debbie was going to ask the judge to give him.

  Debbie was shocked to think that a neighbor she had liked and trusted had believed Anthony’s lies about her, but she laughed when Shelly told her that he even had the temerity to call her. There wasn’t a friend in the world who was more of a mother hen watching over Debbie than Shelly Palombaro.

  Back at home with their mother, and in a new public school, Ralph and Lauren Pignataro blossomed. Sustained by their sure belief that their mother loved them, neither of them had ever buckled under the tragedy that tore through their lives. Their report cards in November spoke for their determination not to let their father’s crimes rub off on them.

  Ralph was in the eighth grade, and every one of his teachers noted that his effort was excellent and that he was “a pleasure to have in class.” He received two 99s, two 98s, and a 96. In grade six, Lauren was rated just as high, with six A’s and two A-pluses.