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“My client is not guilty of murder, not guilty of any intentional crime,” defense attorney John Pieroni of Bergenfield told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. “He didn’t have the requisite intent to commit a crime either by way of mental defect or a combination of the drugs he was taking at the time.
“He’s very sorry this 88-year man was killed.”
First Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor John Higgins said a plea offer to Edwin Estrada remains as originally proposed — 30 years in prison without parole — at least for now.
“My anticipation is we will move forward,” Higgins told Presiding Superior Court Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi in Hackensack yesterday. “This is a homicide case. I anticipate an early spring trial date, and a trial of three to four weeks.”
Higgins said his office “may revisit our plea offer” once he has reviewed psychiatric reports on Estrada.
That process was delayed because of scheduling changes caused by Hurricane Sandy, he said. The court was closed for 2 1/2 weeks after the storm, and people there are still catching up.
Pieroni said he expects the state’s offer will change on the grounds of dimished capacity — that Estrada, then 18, didn’t have the ability to intend to kill Vincent Leuzzi during a burglary of his Fairview home in July 2010 (This differs from an insanity plea, in which a defendant claims to not know the difference between right and wrong).
DeAvila-Silebi set a Jan. 22 for both sides to work out a deal.
CLIFFVIEW PILOT was the first to report that the charges were upgraded to murder when Leuzzi died days after the attack.
Estrada broke into the victim’s residence through an unlocked front door and hit him in the head with something, possibly a frying pan, authorities said.
Estrada was later arrested in New York City and originally charged in Hackensack with attempted murder and armed robbery of the retired mason and bricklayer, who came to the U.S. from his native Italy 73 years ago.
Estrada made things easy for investigators — using Leuzzi’s credit card to buy clothing in Washington Heights, a transaction captured on surveillance video. He remains held on $1 million bail in the Bergen County Jail.
STORY, PHOTOS by Mary K. Miraglia. ABOVE: Edwin Estrada, with his attorney, John Pieroni (INSET: Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor John Higgins)
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