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John Pierotti, age 66, was convicted in February last year of first-degree murder and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon following a retrial for the murders of Gerard Kennedy and Willis Frost in 1998 outside the Dragger Inn in Baldwin.
On Wednesday, Feb. 24, Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas announced that Pierotti, a Freeport resident, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Singas said that at approximately 1 a.m. on Dec. 23, 1998, Pierotti showed up at the Dragger Inn with a handgun and bullets. When his victims left the bar and were sitting in a van outside the building, Pierotti approached them, knocked on the driver’s side window to get their attention and started a fight in the parking lot.
Pierotti first shot Frost in the chest at point-blank range during the fight, and then shot Kennedy in the left eye as he attempted to run away.
Following the shooting, Pierotti was arrested in February 1999 by Nassau County Police investigators and he was convicted of murder in 2000. However, two decades later, Pierotti’s conviction was reversed by a federal appellate court due to claims that he was unable to hear during the trial, prompting the retrial.
“For the past 22 years, John Pierotti has shown absolutely no remorse for murdering Gerard Kennedy and Willis Frost,” Singas said. “He senselessly shot these two men at point blank range outside a bar.
“The Kennedy and Frost families have suffered greatly these last two decades and I thank them for their extraordinary perseverance during the retrial.”
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