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Thomas Battinelli was an asset to the business as a second-generation wholesale flower seller with specialized knowledge of flowers and florists, and was known as the number 2 man to slain owner Michael Murphy, the victim’s son, Justin Wilson, told jurors in Hackensack.
“You thought Tom Battinelli was a good guy?” defense attorney Brian Neary asked.
“Yes,” Wilson said. “We all worked together. There were clashes over time, but nothing big.”
“Everyone knew” that Murphy’s partner of nearly 20 years was the second-in-command of G & M Wholesale Florist, he said.
However, none were aware of a partnership agreement, under which Battinelli was a minority owner for G & M and also owned a portion of the building the business moved into on Midland Avenue, said Wilson, 29.
Prosecutors say Battinelli, of Ridgefield, systematically stole from Murphy before shooting him in the back of the head with a .22-caliber rifle as he sat at his desk, reading The Bergen Record sports pages, in January 2010.
Neary insists they rushed to judgment and got the wrong man.
PHOTO ABOVE: Defense attorney Brian Neary (l.), defendant Thomas Battinelli (STORY / PHOTO: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)
As Wilson explained it, G & M had more than two dozen regular accounts, many of them with retail florists. The company did very little walk-in business — and when it did, it was in large volume, he said.
Battinelli handed about two-thirds of the accounts and Murphy, who was responsible for the business aspects of the company, the rest, he testified.
Sales was the lifeblood of the business, said Wilson, who worked at the company from the time he was a teenager until 2007 and then assumed operating responsibility after his father was killed.
Every day, from 8 until 10:30 a.m., his father and Battinelli made calls to their accounts, he said.
At some point, Wilson said, his father became frustrated with constant mistakes in invoices and began tallying the amounts himself to prevent discrepancies.
Under questioning from Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Danielle Grootenboer, he said he knew of a canvas bag his dad kept. He said he never looked inside and that Murphy told him he regularly kept $3,000 cash in it.
His father never used the cash bag for change, or left it in anyone else’s hands, Wilson said. In fact, he said, he kept it locked, in his briefcase, and always carried the key.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because it was his money and he wouldn’t let it out of his sight,” Wilson responded. “That’s how he was.”
Neary, in turn, asked Wilson questions intended to cast suspicion on an employee, Miguel Buri, an undocumented alien who the former prosecutor has said may have had a motive to kill Murphy.
Wilson said his father was serious about the business but not hard-nosed or rigid. “Anything that got in the way of making money, he wouldn’t like that –being late, miscalculating invoices” were things he wouldn’t approve of, he said.
“Flat tires?” Neary asked, referring to what he said in his opening statement last week was a source of irritation for Murphy.
“No, not necessarily,” Wilson answered.
“Four times?” Neary asked.
“A flat tire is a minimal expense, maybe $20 to repair,” he answered. “No, I don’t think so.”
Neary also asked Wilson whether the company knew that Buri was in the country illegally and didn’t have a valid driver’s license.
Wilson said he didn’t.
Buri was fired sometime since the murder, he said, because the company’s insurer would no longer cover him.
“He had two accidents within a year where he totaled the vans, and we couldn’t get insurance with him on the payroll anymore,” Wilson said.
Testimony in the trial, which is expected to take up to four more weeks to conclude, resumes tomorrow morning.
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