Anthony DiPippo found not guilty of Josette Wright's murder in Putnam
The jury spent about a day deliberating before returning the verdict. DiPippo was convicted twice before, but those verdicts were overturned.
Anthony DiPippo walked out of Putnam County Court a free man Tuesday, about an hour after a jury acquitted him of the rape and murder of a 12-year-old Carmel girl, Josette Wright, in 1994.
Jurors delivered the not guilty verdict in what was DiPippo's third trial at about 4:15 p.m. Tuesday.
DiPippo cried, turned around and hugged Jeffrey Deskovic who was seated behind him, and then hugged his defense attorney.
Wright's mother, Susan, gasped.
"If they wanted him running loose, now they've got it," she said afterward.
DEFENSE: DiPippo's lawyers make final pitch
PROSECUTION: Closing arguments from Friday
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As he left the courthouse, a smiling DiPippo hugged a number of supporters.
"It's unbelievable," he said. "I didn't expect a not guilty verdict."
"I'm ecstatic. I'm still in shock. I don't know what's going on," he added a short time later. "I'm just here with my family. It's a great moment in time, it's the best moment of my life. I'm very thankful."
As she left the courthouse, Susan Wright told a reporter: "I know the jury was wrong."
"They just wanted to get out of there," she said. "He spent 20 years in prison, and I'm going to have to be satisfied with that."
"God bless my daughter who died fighting these barbarians," she added.
Prosecutor Larry Glasser said: "We're disappointed in the jury's decision but we respect the verdict."
Deskovic, who was cleared after serving years in jail in a murder case, said his attention will now turn to supporting the appeal of DiPippo's co-defendant.
"It was special to me that I was the first one he hugged," Deskovic said. "Next is getting Andrew Krivak exonerated."
The jury had deliberated briefly on Friday before adjourning for a three-day weekend. They resumed deliberating on Tuesday morning, after the judge — answering a question from the panel — told them their job was to determine whether the crime happened "on or about" Oct. 3, 1994, not whether it happened on that exact date.
The jury later asked for a read-back of testimony from three people to whom DiPippo had allegedly made incriminating statements, two of them jail staff members. They asked no further questions before delivering their verdict.
DiPippo has spent almost all of his adult life in custody since his arrest in 1996. He was released for several months this summer on bail on virtual house arrest after being granted a third trial, but a judge ordered him returned to jail in late August for posting information on Facebook about his former girlfriend, a key witness in the case.
DiPippo, 40, was arrested along with Krivak in July 1996 after Denise Rose, the former girlfriend, claimed she was in the van with them and saw them rape and kill Wright. She told police the men gagged Wright with her underwear and dropped her body off in the woods in Fields Lane in Patterson, which was where police found her remains in November 1995.
DiPippo had been found guilty of second-degree murder in previous trials in 1997 and 2012, but both convictions were overturned on appeal. Krivak, who was convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life, is seeking a second trial.
Glasser had argued to the jury Friday that more than 30 witnesses and 100 pieces of evidence were a collection that "all fits together" to prove DiPippo's guilt.
"The evidence in this case is compelling, and it is overwhelming," Glasser said.
DiPippo's attorneys had questioned the legitimacy of the testimony of the former girlfriend and the crime's top investigator, Patrick Castaldo, a retired Putnam County sheriff's detective. In his closing argument, defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo also questioned why the van, which was the alleged scene of the crime, had a shag carpet but didn't have any traces of DiPippo's DNA.
The defense pointed to Howard Gombert, who is serving time in Connecticut for sexual assault, as the likely killer.
"Anthony DiPippo is not a perfect person. He was involved with buying drugs, selling drugs," Agnifilo argued, "but this crime is on a totally different planet."
On Tuesday, he said he believed the ability of the defense to bring up Gombert in this case helped make the difference in the result.
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