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Daniel Rochat, 46, of Wood-Ridge, has already been moved from New Jersey State Prison in Trenton to the Bergen County Jail in Hackensack in anticipation of a new trial following the Appellate Division ruling.
He remains charged with various counts of murder and felony murder, as well as aggravated arson, desecrating human remains, burglary, hindering arrest and false swearing.
Jurors in Hackensack convicted Rochat in June 2017 of beating real estate agent Barbara Vernieri, then pouring gasoline on her and around her East Rutherford home before setting it on fire in September 2012.
Prosecutors had told them the Waldwick native was burglarizing Vernieri, whom he’d known since childhood, so he could repay an $11,000 debt to a girlfriend. They said he removed cell phone and other forensic evidence from the crime scene, gave false information to police, lied to them under oath and threatened a sergeant and detective while resisting arrest.
Rochat contended that he was home sleeping at the time, but cellphone records told a different story – placing him in the neighborhood, prosecutors said.
His defense team objected to the introduction of the DNA evidence, challenging the “Forensic Statistical Tool” method (known commonly a “low copy number”) that was used to analyze it.
The appeals judge agreed and tossed Rochat’s conviction.
The DNA evidence “did not positively identify” Rochat, the panel wrote in its ruling. “Instead, it indicated defendant could not be excluded as a contributor and the profile would be expected to occur in 1 of 333 [C]aucasian individuals.
“We do not find this evidence to be overwhelming.”
READ THE OPINION HERE: State of NewJersey v. Daniel Rochat (Appellate Div)
Other evidence the jury shouldn’t have heard, the judges found, was an account of Rochat allegedly resisting arrest when police stopped him in Allendale.
Also thrown out by the appellate judges was hearsay testimony from a friend of Vernieri’s that the victim described Rochat visiting her two days before the killing, saying his car had broken down.
Vernieri was a business associate of Rochat’s father, Gene, who was a principal at Kurgan-Bergen Realtors Agency. She had worked for the older Rochat for decades.
The murder bore similarities to two other unsolved Bergen County murders, both in 2010, in which elderly victims were doused with an accelerant and set ablaze.
Dolores Alliotts, 69, was stabbed to death and her Palisades Park home set on fire in April 2010. Five months later, 74-year-old Joan Davis of Teaneck suffered the same fate.
In each of those cases, as with Vernieri’s murder, prosecutors said the fires were set in an attempt to cover up the crimes. The advantage in the Vernieri case was that East Rutherford police and firefighters quickly extinguished the blaze, allowing a forensic examination of her body that authorities didn’t have in the two previous cases.
Still, Rochat’s case was one of the longest to finally come to trial in Bergen County history.
He’s served five years of the life sentence so far.
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