Chartier said, “I am,” but then proceeded to quibble about how the troopers paid for the gas and badgered the witness about not filing paperwork for the use of a state-owned, taxpayer-paid boat. “What’s the normal procedure for requisitioning a vessel for activity?” he asked.
Mohl objected again. “It’s not relevant for this. Limited scope for a specific day and incident that defense counsel was inquiring about for another witness. We brought in this witness to clarify the issue.”
“Your Honor,” Chartier argued, “he testified in this instance they did not utilize paperwork. I need to know in what instances they would utilize paperwork and why they didn’t do it in this case.”
“Your Honor,” Mohl repeated, “that’s irrelevant for this hearing.”
“First of all,” Freehill said, “the witness told you why he didn’t do it. Because he didn’t think he needed to. That’s the answer. If you want to find out what instances, I’ll give you a little leeway.”
“In what instances are you required to fill out paperwork for use of this vessel?” Chartier asked Gardner.
“Although, he answered that question already to some degree, when he said when there’s diving involved or something else,” the judge interrupted.
Chartier agreed and reworded the question. “A list of all instances in which paperwork would be required?”
“Diving operations, sonar operations, if we’re going out to do a rescue or, you know, if I was going to go out and there was a stranded boater on the river, I would do a report on it. But for just an investigator [asking] us for transport to cross to an island, I didn’t need to do one.”
After that, the proceedings became farcical. Chartier asked a question. Mohl objected. The judge usually sustained. Over and over again. At last, Trooper Gardner was released from the stand.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Senior ADA David Byrne called Investigator Anthony DaSilva to the stand. DaSilva had worked for the New York State Police for eleven years and served as an investigator for the past two. On April 29, 2015, he’d accompanied Senior Investigator Moscato and Investigator DeQuarto on the boat to Bannerman Island.
“Once we arrived on the island,” DaSilva said, “we began to walk around and make our way to the shoreline where we could.” He was dressed in a shirt, tie, and slacks, having left his jacket in the car; the other two investigators wore jeans and T-shirts.
DaSilva identified Angelika in the courtroom and was asked to describe the initial interaction between her and the senior investigator. “When she came off the boat, she said hello and it seemed to be a warm greeting. She also said hello to Investigator DeQuarto. And they introduced me as well, since I had never met her before.”
“What was her demeanor at that time?” Byrne asked.
“She seemed to be in good spirits.”
“Did she express surprise at seeing the police on the island?”
“No.”
“What happened next?”
“Senior Investigator Moscato advised Miss Graswald that we had come out to the island to check around the shoreline. We hadn’t found anything. And he asked her if she could sort of take us through the day of the nineteenth that she had been on the island with Mr. Viafore. Walk us through where they arrived, the areas on the island that they had gone to. How the day was. How the weather was. And take us through that day and back to where they left from, and exactly where they left from and when.”
“Did she do so?”
“She did. She sort of had a difficult time staying on track with it.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“She kept stopping when we would walk, and change the subject and talk about other things that were going on. And Senior Investigator Moscato had to work to kind of keep her on track with moving forward and re-creating the day as it were.”
“You said as you walked. Can you explain, please, the area that was walked, generally speaking, from the dock to the interior of the island?”
DaSilva complied. “So, when you arrive on the island, there is a dock there. You walk to a platform, off the dock where there are a couple porta-potties. Off to the right, there is a staircase that goes up a pretty large hill. Series of stairs. There [are] actually quite a few of them, with landings in between them, before you finally arrive at the top.
“When you arrive at the top, there is a series of trails that have stone walkways and even stone retaining walls around them that go to various points on the island. We went up one particular pathway that goes by a platform that overlooks the Hudson and continues on up to a residence that is sort of at the top of the island there. But we didn’t make it all the way up there, I don’t believe.
“We were coming back down that trail I described near that platform. And I asked Miss Graswald who she called from the rescue boat.”
“What did she say, if anything?”
“She didn’t answer,” DaSilva said. “Investigator DeQuarto was a couple of steps away at that point. I just walked up to him, just to inquire out loud, because, again, it wasn’t my case. And I wasn’t there. And this was the first time I met Miss Graswald.
“I said, ‘A rescue worker saw you with the phone on the boat. Who did you call?’ She said, ‘I had a missed call, and I tried to call it back, but the call didn’t go through.’ I asked her where the phone was and she said that she didn’t know.”
“And what happened then, if anything?”
“I said to her, ‘You know, you initially told us, us being the state police, that you had lost the phone in the water.’ Investigator DeQuarto told me yesterday that a rescue worker had seen you with the phone on the boat and you told him that you were going to go home and look for the phone. Your fiancé is missing, and I would think that the cell phone that contains all of your memories of him—photographs, pictures, text messages, basically documenting your life with him—I would think that that would be something very important that you would want to find. But you don’t really seem to care.’ And she said, ‘Where is that phone? I had it at the hospital. I think the first officer that was there has the phone.’”
Soon after that discussion, DaSilva said that he and Moscato left DeQuarto to speak alone with Angelika. DaSilva explained that he and the senior investigator walked away and didn’t see the other two for forty minutes to an hour. He then corroborated Moscato’s statement about DeQuarto’s description of his conversation with Angelika.
“When you had the conversation with Investigator DeQuarto, where was the defendant?” Byrne asked.
“She was back up on the platform. But as he was walking towards us I saw her in the background walking on the trail, and she was going back down toward the stairs that go back down to the docks where the boats—”
“Was she in handcuffs?”
“No.”
“What happened next, where did you go?”
“She came out of the bathroom and we boarded the state police boat to go back to Gully’s.”
“Did the defendant ever protest getting on the boat?”
“No.”
“Would you please describe the defendant’s demeanor on the boat?”
“She actually seemed—she wasn’t holding her stomach or breathing heavy anymore. She at one point said, ‘I’m free.’ She seemed to be enjoying the wind. And she was whistling.”
“She actually said, ‘I’m free’?” Byrne emphasized.
“Yes. It was pretty surreal, actually, on the Hudson with that going on, and the engine dying, and knowing what she had just told Investigator DeQuarto.”
“Was she crying?”
“No.”
“Was she in cuffs on the boat?”
“No.”
After landing at Gully’s twenty-five minutes after leaving the island, he said, “we got off the boat. I went in Investigator DeQuarto’s car with Miss Graswald sitting in the front passenger seat. I sat in the back. And we drove back to Montgomery.”
“Did the defendant say anythin
g on the way back from Gully’s Landing to the state police barracks in Montgomery?”
“Yeah. She said she felt better. And as we were getting to SP Montgomery, she said that she thought that Investigator DeQuarto was cute the first time she met him.”
In response to questions, DaSilva confirmed that Angelika was not in cuffs during the drive and that she never requested the presence of counsel on the island, in the boat, or in the car.
“Do you know where, if anywhere, the defendant went once you all arrived at the barracks?”
“Yes, she was placed in an interview room.”
“And did you have any contact with the defendant after that?”
“No, not until much later.”
The state turned over the witness and the court had a short recess before the cross-examination began. Portale questioned DaSilva about the Spectrum Justice Report and his interactions with ADA Mohl in the past two weeks. He responded that he’d met with her three or four times and had no idea if she took any notes to document those encounters.
“When were you first assigned to this case, the Graswald case?” Portale asked
“The twenty-ninth of April was the first day I became involved, nine thirty, ten in the morning.”
“How did that come about?”
“I checked in with my supervisor that day, Senior Investigator Moscato. He advised me that … [he] and Investigator DeQuarto were going to go out to Bannerman’s Island, and he asked me if I wanted to go along.”
“So, that morning, prior to Bannerman’s Island, did you get up to speed or, quote, unquote, get ‘read in’ on the Graswald case?”
“Yeah, they told me why they were going out there. And just working in the back room there the preceding week, I started going over bits and pieces of what was going on.”
“What bits and pieces are you talking about?” Portale asked.
“That they were attempting to locate Mr. Viafore in the water. That there were boats in the water. That the dive team had not located him as of yet.”
“There is more, though, right? They briefed you on more than just that, right?”
“Yes, on the twenty-ninth—” DaSilva began.
“You mind if I finish the question?” Portale snapped.
“Sorry. I thought you were done.”
“So did I,” Judge Freehill added.
“They briefed you on more than that, they briefed you on the fact that they were suspicious about Miss Graswald’s phone, correct?”
Byrne objected, and Judge Freehill sustained.
Portale took another tact. “Did you have a team meeting that morning?”
“No.”
“Who was it that you met with to get read in, to get up to speed on this case?”
“I went to the barracks that morning and met with Senior Investigator Moscato. And … [he] and I drove to the waterfront together.”
“On Bannerman’s, you asked Miss Graswald several questions about her phone and the location of her phone, right?”
“Yes.”
“How did you know to ask those questions?”
“During the car ride over, Senior Investigator Moscato advised me that Investigator DeQuarto had talked to Miss Graswald in the previous evening. But he told me that they were attempting to locate her cell phone. When we got to the waterfront, we met with Investigator DeQuarto, who reiterated to me that he had spoken with Miss Graswald the night before and she had indicated that she would check her residence for the cell phone in question.”
“At any time prior to April 29, 2015, and the interaction you had with Miss Graswald on Bannerman’s Island, had you listened to her nine-one-one call, yes or no?” Portale asked.
“I don’t think so. I remember I did hear it at one point, but I don’t believe it was till after that.”
“The morning of the twenty-ninth, before you went to Bannerman’s Island, are you sure you didn’t listen to it with Investigator DeQuarto, when you got into the barracks?”
“I don’t believe [he] was at the barracks in the morning prior to going out to Bannerman’s.”
After discussing in more detail the sequence of events on the island, Portale asked, “You had stated on direct that you had gone to Bannerman’s that morning to check the shoreline … why did you want to check the shoreline?”
DaSilva repeated his previous statement about no one having checked out the island itself and explained their search. “It was a little difficult due to the topography of the island, but we did the best we could to make our way from the various trails down to the water where we could and did check the shoreline, for approximately an hour.”
“And about what percentage of that shoreline would you say that you covered in that time frame?”
“I think we got pretty close to doing the whole thing.”
“Did you have any prods to be able to look into the water or anything?”
“No.”
“You weren’t able to manipulate the shoreline in any way, with sticks or prods to see if there was something in any location that you couldn’t visualize?” Portale pressed.
“No. What I was doing was just a visual inspection.”
“Did you take any photos of the shoreline that you had searched on April 29 on Bannerman’s Island?”
“Yes, there were some photos.”
“How many photos did you take?”
“Off the top of my head, I don’t recall,” DaSilva admitted.
“What did you do with those photos?”
“When the camera gets downloaded, they go on the computer.”
“Did you give those photos to Miss Mohl?”
“I gave her the photos pertaining to Miss Graswald’s presence on the island that day.”
After interrogating DaSilva on the scuba team’s search of the shoreline, Portale refocused on what the investigators had been looking to find that day. “And in your search of the shoreline, were you searching for a body you believed to be floating or submerged, did you know?”
“No, I did not know. And we were also looking for belongings that might be there, not just the—ultimately, the body—but also other things that may have washed up pertaining to Mr. Viafore. Potentially anything.”
“Right. Belongings that could be submerged, correct?”
“Or floating, or had been submerged and washed up or—”
Portale cut him off, “And, at the time, did you have a working knowledge of how long it would have taken, given the water temperature and the ambient temperature, and the date, for a body to float to the surface, do you know?”
“Objection, Your Honor,” Byrne said, “beyond the scope.”
“Sustained.”
Portale asked about his client going to the restroom unaccompanied. “Weren’t you worried about her escaping or taking off? I mean, she just confessed to murder, weren’t you worried?”
“It’s not that large of an area,” DaSilva pointed out. He gestured around the courtroom as he described the island’s layout. “The platform where those porta-potties are is maybe from this table to that wall there, and, you know, the width between where the court reporter is sitting to the desk there. There is really nowhere to go; she could either go back up the stairs or down to the docks. And there is a bench there.”
“And she didn’t?”
“No.”
“She went to the boat?”
“Correct.”
“Okay. She wasn’t handcuffed at that point?”
“No.”
Portale moved on to the car ride from Gully’s to the barracks. “And Miss Graswald rode in the front passenger seat of Investigator DeQuarto’s cruiser, correct?”
“Yes, well—”
“You were in the back seat?”
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t his cruiser?”
“It was an unmarked cruiser, sir. An unmarked car.”
“It’s his car,” Portale argued.
“It’s a state police vehicle.”
&n
bsp; “So, she was in the front and you were in the back?”
“Yes.”
“And she wasn’t cuffed?”
“No.”
“Why were you in the back? Were you cuffed?” Portale quipped.
Byrne immediately objected.
The defense attorney rephrased his question. “Why were you in the back and she in the front?”
“That’s how we’re trained.”
“Prior to sitting down on the trail, the four of you, were you present for anyone expressly advising Miss Graswald that she wasn’t a suspect?”
DaSilva hesitated. “Can I just have an issue with the question?” he asked. “It seems to imply that she was a suspect.”
“No. I’m just asking you if anybody told her she wasn’t. Did you tell her she wasn’t?”
“I don’t make a habit of telling people that aren’t suspects that they are suspects.”
“So, the answer is no?”
“That’s correct.”
Portale confirmed that neither DeQuarto nor Moscato had told Angelika she was a suspect either. Then he asked whether or not DaSilva had inspected the kayaks or paddles before going to Bannerman’s Island and if he’d personally carried any forensic tools to collect evidence. DaSilva answered no to both questions. When Portale asked if he’d had a camera with him, he said he had.
“And did you take notes with the notepad on your cell phone?”
“No,” DaSilva responded.
“You use your cell phone to record, right?”
“Yes.”
“Do you do that typically during the course of your employment?”
“I do not.”
“If you want to record a conversation, what do you use? Do you have a handheld recorder or something else? In the field?”
“Generally, I don’t record conversations in the field,” DaSilva explained. “One of the other investigators I work with has a handheld recording device that, if I know I’ll need it in advance, it is available to me. Or if I’m at the station, I’ll use it there.”
“But you don’t use your phone?”
“No.”
“You have—I mean you could if you wanted. If you wanted to record a conversation, you have the capability?”
Death on the River Page 18
