TRENTON
– Attorney General Stuart Rabner and
Criminal Justice Director Gregory A. Paw
announced that Louis Auricchio, who was
convicted in 1994 by the state Division
of Criminal Justice of murdering Genovese
crime boss John DiGilio, was released from
federal prison in Virginia today and is
being transported to New Jersey to complete
his 30-year state prison sentence.
State
investigators from the Division of Criminal
Justice are escorting Auricchio, 48, from
U.S. Penitentiary Lee in Jonesville, Va.,
to New Jersey, where he will be processed
by the state Department of Corrections at
its Central Reception and Assignment Facility
in Trenton. Aurricchio is being flown to
Philadelphia. Corrections officials at the
secure reception facility in Trenton will
determine where Auricchio will complete
his state prison sentence.
Auricchio,
formerly of Holmdel, was a Genovese crime
family soldier looking to increase his power
at the time that DiGilio’s body was
found floating in the Hackensack River on
May 26, 1988. DiGilio had been shot five
times in the head and had been missing for
three weeks.
The
murder remained unsolved for several years,
but an investigation by the New Jersey State
Police and the Division of Criminal Justice
uncovered detailed information that led
to a state indictment of Auricchio in 1993
on charges that included the killing. In
March 1994, Auricchio pleaded guilty to
first-degree state charges of aggravated
manslaughter and racketeering.
Auricchio
admitted that he conspired with other members
of the crime organization to kill DiGilio.
He said he shot DiGilio several times in
the back of the head with a .38 caliber
handgun from the back seat of his own black
Lincoln Continental, driven by George Weingartner,
a former Bayonne police officer.
Later
that year, the Division of Criminal Justice
indicted Weingartner, Angelo Prisco and
11 other associates on racketeering and
other charges, including a count of tampering
with evidence against Weingartner for helping
to clean and subsequently destroy Auricchio’s
Lincoln.
On
June 10, 1994, Auricchio was sentenced to
30 years in New Jersey state prison on the
murder charge, with a minimum of 15 years
without parole. He was sentenced to 20 years,
10 without possibility of parole, on the
racketeering charge, with the sentences
to run concurrently with each other and
with a federal sentence for racketeering
that was imposed one month earlier.
Auricchio
had already been serving time in federal
prison for tax evasion.
Weingartner
committed suicide during his trial in 1998.
He was found in an idling car in the garage
of his Brick home, asphyxiated by carbon
monoxide. Prisco pleaded guilty in 1997
to state charges of conspiracy to commit
racketeering and arson for hire and was
sentenced to 12 years in prison. A number
of their co-defendants were also convicted.
Lt.
James Mulholland of the State Police, now
retired, Supervising State Investigator
Robert Hayes and former Assistant Attorney
General Donald Campolo led the state investigation
into the DiGilio murder. Deputy Attorney
General Charles Grinnell handled Auricchio’s
guilty plea. Assistant Attorney General
Robert Leaman handled the Prisco, Weingarten
and related cases.
>> View
photo of Auricchio (from federal prison)
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