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Edwin Estrada, 22, shuffled some papers, spoke with his attorney and otherwise kept a mostly blank expression as the verdict was read.
The jurors began deliberating a little after 9 a.m. and returned the verdict around 11:30.
Defense attorney John Pieroni told CLIFFVIEW PILOT that he felt the jurors “completely disregarded” testimony by psychiatrists that Estrada didn’t have the mental capacity to form the intent to kill.
First Assistant Prosecutor John Higgins emphasized that intent wasn’t necessary to reach the guilty verdicts.
“To form intent, you do not have to plan it in advance,” Higgins told the jurors during his summation last week. “When he brought that pot down on the back of his skull, he intended to kill him.”
Estrada was not quite 18 when he broke into 88-year old Vincent Leuzzi’s house on Jersey Avenue in July, 2010 to steal money for himself and Leuzzi’s grandson. Both were drug addicts hoping to support their habits.
Leuzzi later died of his injuries.
Pieroni argued during the trial that his client suffers from bipolar disorder, comes from a disadvantaged background, and exhibits the behavior of someone under a great deal of stress.
He’d been on the streets, homeless, for weeks and was strung out and hungry, the lawyer told the jurors.
Taking it a step further, Pieroni said Estrada was there only because of Leuzzi’s grandson, Andrew Abella.
Both men had broken into the home two months earlier, he noted. That night, Abella sent Estrada in through a second-floor bathroom window “because he was too overweight to get in,” Pieroni said.
Estrada went through the house, found nothing, and came out to tell Abella there was nothing to steal, the lawyer said.
“Andrew Abella didn’t believe my client,” Pieroni said. “He went into the house himself and searched it, looking for money.”
“If Andrew Abella could go into the house again in May, who’s to say he didn’t do it again in July?” Pieroni asked.
Higgins, in turn, called the attack “extensive and particularly brutal” and Leuzzi “as vulnerable as anyone you will ever see.”
Abella, who testified during the six-week trial, appears headed to probation for his role in the crime, Higgins noted.
“Does Andrew Abella bear responsibility for what happened?” he asked jurors. “Yes, but not in the same way as Edwin Estrada.”
Estrada originally pleaded guilty in March 2013 in exchange for a 27-year prison term. But a judge nixed the deal and set a trial date after family members called the penalty too lenient.
Among the charges to which the jurors returned guilty verdicts:
- aggravated assault resulting in the death of Leuzzi;
- causing his death while engaged in burglary and flight;
- inflicting bodily injury on him during a theft while armed with a deadly weapon;
- causing his death of Leuzzi during a robbery;
- assault with a deadly weapon while burglarizing Leuzzi’s house.
Superior Court Judge Edward A. Jerejian set sentencing for Sept. 26.
STORY / PHOTO: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
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