Under the Knife: A Beautiful Woman, a Phony Doctor, and a Shocking Homicide (27 page)

After graduating from law school at Northeastern University in Boston, Tony returned to New York and was admitted to the bar in 1981. After a short time in the public sector, he set up a solo criminal law practice. In an article published in
New York
magazine, Deborah Plotz-Pierce, one of Ricco’s elementary school teachers, told Chris Smith, “I don’t think he’s attracted to lost causes. I think he goes after lost people, because in his family, he was surrounded by lost people. He couldn’t help them then, but he can help others now.”

Ricco made it his mission to champion those whom no one else wanted to touch. He plugged away in near
anonymity outside of the courtroom until 1997, when he defended Charles Price in federal court. Price had been convicted of violating the civil rights of a Hasidic man in Crown Heights in 1991 when he incited an attack on Yankel Rosenbaum by shouting, “Let’s get a Jew.” He was also found guilty of inflicting at least two of the four fatal stab wounds delivered to Rosenbaum. Now he faced charges that he’d violated Rosenbaum’s civil rights.

It was in 1998, though, that he really drew the attention and firepower of the media. He defended Corey Arthur against charges that he shot and killed his high school teacher. Ricco was attacked in the press for his vicious cross-examinations and his vilification of the victim.

Later that year, he defended Mohamed Sadeek Odeh, a co-conspirator in the August 1998 bombing of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He represented Sammy “The Bull” Gravano when, based on allegations made by Richard “Iceman” Kuklinski, the district attorney brought charges against Gravano for killing a police officer. In 2005, Ricco had to step back from that case because of a conflict of interest; those charges are still pending.

Ricco continued to rack up clients the rest of the country despised. He took up the cause of a Pakastani, Uzair Paracha, whose father was a detainee at Guantanamo Bay. He represented Mohammed Azmath, who was seized on an Amtrak train in Texas on September 12, 2001.

Ricco defended Tarik Shah, Bronx jazz musician, whom prosecutors charged provided material support to terrorists and “committed himself to the path of holy war, to the oath of secrecy, and to abide by the directives of Al Qaeda.” Throughout these cases, Ricco often told the press that the charges were made because of the anti-Muslim bias that possessed prosecutors and justice officials in this country since 9-11.

Ricco also represented Andre Cooper in the first death
penalty case presented in a Pennsylvania court since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1988.

Ricco’s defense spared Cooper from execution. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Though people might disagree with his tactics in the courtroom, no one could deny his captivating presence or his singular style. David Klinghoffer described him as a natty retro dresser in the
National Review
: “the immaculately pressed tan suit and bow tie combination, accessorized by matching Homburg and black half-frame Malcolm X glasses . . . made the attorney look like he escaped from a 1940s hard-boiled detective novel.” He went on to add, “if I can track down a suit like Anthony Ricco’s, I’ll be in Heaven.”

Now, Anthony Ricco, in all of his sartorial splendor, stood at the side of Dean Faiello—a phony doctor, a drug abuser, a fugitive from justice and an accused murderer. What tricks would pop out of Ricco’s bag this time?

THE MEDIA RAISED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE FORENSIC EVI
dence discovered in Dean’s Jeep Grand Cherokee. Police spokesman Michael Coan said, “We were aware of the car and determined that it was of no investigative value.” Jeane MacIntosh and Brad Hamilton consulted with forensics experts. Lawrence Koblinsky, at John Jay College and a consultant for NYPD, said, “In my opinion, they screwed up. If he transported her, the car is considered one of the crime scenes. A good defense attorney could argue that the police were sloppy.”

Another expert agreed, saying that it still wasn’t a waste of time at this late date to search the vehicle—evidence could still be found. “Maybe a hair, a fiber, traces of a drug, who knows?”

DR. LAURIE POLIS AT LAST RECEIVED A CALL FROM THE
district attorney’s office.
About time
, she thought. Polis cooperated fully, providing them with all the information she had on Dean Faiello. Still, she avoided interviews with the media. She did not want to be a part of any article or story in connection with him.

Both of Dean’s June court dates were postponed. Ronda Lustman of the Criminal Prosecution Bureau of the attorney general’s office represented the state in the
case against Dean for unauthorized practice of medicine. She had hoped Dean would be sentenced for that crime and that she could put away her Faiello file. Now, it looked as if it would hang in limbo for a while.

It didn’t appear as though Dean would be sentenced on that charge until the murder trial. His time spent in custody awaiting trial would count as time served for any sentence issued for the un-licensed practice of medicine charge. At Dean’s homicide trial, Lustman expected, the judge would order what remained of those four years to be served concurrently with the sentence he received on the murder count, when and if Dean was convicted of killing Maria Cruz.

DEAN NOW RESIDED ON RIKERS ISLAND IN THE EAST RIVER.
New York City purchased the 90-acre hunk of land in 1884. Used as a sanitary landfill, the island grew to 400 acres with the addition of discarded remnants from the large, growing metropolis. The city erected the first jail on Rikers in the 1930s. In 2006, its ten major jails housed more than 16,000 inmates. Dean’s unit, the George R. Vierno Center, named after the retired chief of the corrections department, opened in 1991 as an 850-bed facility. In 1993, an addition to the center added room for another 500 prisoners.

“I try to keep busy reading one book in English and one book in Spanish at all times, but it’s not easy.” Dean said. “Rikers Island has no library, no book cart and frowns upon prisoners reading books.”

From the tiny window of his cell in the maximum security unit, Dean had a view of chain-link fence topped with razor wire and the back side of a gray housing unit. “There are no trees visible, no plants, no grass, no people and nothing living,” he wrote. “There are no colors except
gray.” Almost the entire day, he listened to the annoying thrum of a large pump ten feet from his cell.

For 90 minutes each day, however, he got to leave his housing unit to go the law library. He had one hour of recreation time in a concrete courtyard without trees or grass. There was nothing to do out there but run in circles on the hard slab—no exercise equipment, no recreation or sports supplies for games of any sort and no radios or books were allowed.

Inside, the entertainment options available were not aligned with Dean’s tastes at all. The TV showed an endless stream of gangster rap movies starring people like 50 Cent, martial arts films with Jet Li and mass annihilation flicks like
The Hills Have Eyes
—not one Oscar contender in the bunch. In between movies, the TV displayed concerts with Ja Rule and Ludacris. “I can see why he calls himself Ludacris,” Dean wrote. “It describes his performance art perfectly.”

While movies were on, he worked on crossword puzzles from newspapers—“The
New York Times’
are my favorites,” he wrote.

The food, at least, was a dramatic improvement over Costa Rican jail fare. He gained back the weight he lost there and an additional twenty pounds besides. Health care was better, too. He started a regimen of anti-retroviral treatment and lost his chronic cough and wheezing.

He wrote a stack of letters to the warden, deputies, commissioners, priests and even Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to decry the discrimination against Catholics and all Christians on Rikers Island. “The preferred religion here is Islam and those who are not Islamic are ignored.” Dean wanted to participate in weekly mass and in Catholic Bible study classes, but was denied attendance. No one
responded to his letters. “Pleas from non-Muslims in the correction system fall on deaf ears,” he wrote.

Once a week, Dean, like the other prisoners in his unit, stood outside his cell in his underwear clutching his plastic mattress to his chest as corrections officers in riot gear conducted a search. They “invade every cell and tear apart everything that isn’t bolted to the floor. They examine minutely every book, sheet of paper, magazines, sneakers, shirts, socks, underwear, linens, correspondence, medications, toilet paper and plastic cups and forks.” Returning to his cell, Dean’s belongings were scattered willy-nilly on top of his denuded metal cot. “And this goes on every week, month after month, until the process becomes dehumanizing and desensitizing.”

After years of living well beyond his means, Dean Faiello claimed that the only money he now had was the $10 he received each week in prison salary.

ON JULY
25, 2005,
DEAN LEFT HIS DREARY CELL ON RIKERS
Island to appear in Manhattan Criminal Court. He carried a paperback copy of
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
in his manacled hands.

Ann Prunty announced that the grand jury handed down the official indictment, charging Dean with the crime of murder in the second degree. The document she filed read:

The defendant, in the County of New York, on or about April 13, 2002, under circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life, recklessly engaged in conduct which created a grave risk of death to another person, and thereby caused the death of Maria Cruz.

Dean faced a sentence of 25 years to life on this charge.

On hearing the news, Rudolfo Cruz, from his home in Paranaque City, told the
Filipino Reporter:
“Thank God! The wheel of justice is grinding. We’ve been waiting for this moment.” He added that he and his wife planned to fly to New York for the trial in October.

Dean returned to court on August 4 to enter his plea of not guilty. He was due in court again on October 19. When that day arrived, the court proceedings were moved forward to April 2006 because of conflicts in Ricco’s court calendar.

That April, Rudolfo and Irenea flew to New York with their daughter, Dr. Tes Lara, and her husband, Tadeo, and two grandchildren, Isabel and Anton. They planned to attend Faiello’s pre-trial hearing, staying at the Jersey City home of Maria’s aunt, Rebecca de los Angeles.

Ricco, however, was not available in April either. Two death penalty cases created conflicts in his schedule. One was the trial in Pennsylvania. The other was the New York defense of Rudy Fleming, accused of murdering actress Nicole duFresne.

Although disappointed at the rescheduling of Dean’s court date, the Cruz family accepted the reality with stoicism. Rudolfo told the
Filipino Reporter
that the family would fly back to New York for legal proceedings as many times as needed. “It could be costly, I know, but we’ll do anything for Pipay,” he said. “I will keep coming back until I am assured that Faiello will never see the light of day. I leave it up to the U.S. justice system and God. Ultimately, God, the one who knows everything, will be Faiello’s final judge.”

“My only worry,” his wife Irenea added, “is that I may not be able to stand seeing Faiello face-to-face.”

While in New York, the family met with Ann Prunty and other officials with the Manhattan district attorney’s office. They also spent time with Leopoldo Abad, whose
firm was handling Maria’s estate, including her stocks and her savings accounts.

WHILE DEAN’S SELF-CENTERED FOCUS LED HIM DOWN A PATH
of destruction, his former lover Jason Opsahl’s giving nature built a legacy that helped others, even after his death.
Broadway Bares
—the charitable fundraiser inspired by Jason—hit the stage for the sixteenth time on Father’s Day, 2006. What started as a grassroots effort by a handful of committed men now involved the volunteer services of hundreds of people each year. The show raised $650,950 for BC/EFA that night, bringing the total amount of funds donated since the show’s inception to more than three-and-a-half million dollars.

BY THE SUMMER OF
2006,
DEAN HAD BEEN IN THE CUSTODY OF
the corrections system in New York for more than a year. The season arrived in full force in New York City. Muggy air wrapped warm, wet tendrils around its occupants. Many found relief in their air-conditioned homes. For those on Rikers Island, however, there was no relief—no air conditioning, no fans, very little ventilation at all.

The small windows in Dean’s cell opened just a crack, providing a barely perceptible movement of air. Dean stopped going outside to run on the hot concrete. When his recreation hour arrived, he remained in his small hole, where the air was hot, humid and still. “All I do all day is sweat, work on crossword puzzles and read,” he wrote. “I have fallen into a slump both physically and mentally.”

Dean’s trial date was set for September 7, 2006. Greg Bach, although on the official list of witnesses for the state, did not expect to be called to testify. The bridges between himself and the prosecution were burned beyond repair. He did not trust them and suspected that they shared the feeling.

Greg wanted to move on with his life—and he tried. But the shadow of his past with Dean darkened every day. He hoped to return to the creative expression of sand sculpting in the summer of 2006. Life had been on hold for far too long.