Toms River Man Faces Weapons Charge Over Movie Scene Pellet Gun

By CARLY BALDWIN and KAREN WALL (Patch Staff)

WOODBRIDGE, NJ -- A Toms River man who is an actor and stand-up comedian says he has been left stranded by a movie producer after Woodbridge police arrested him for brandishing a prop gun while filming a movie in a residential part of town last year.

Carlo Bellario, on a GoFundMe page he started, says he answered a casting call to play a bodyguard in a “small independent film produced by a college student.” On Nov. 16, 2015, Bellario says he was filming a car chase scene in a residential section of Woodbridge, where he was directed to act like he was shooting a gun at an oncoming car. The prop gun he used was an air soft pellet pistol, he said.

According to a report by WPIX 11 in New York, the casting call was for a film called Vendetta Games. The project, by a filmmaker named Andre Joseph and his Epyx Productions, has been funded through a Kickstarter campaign.

“As soon as we returned from shooting the scene, the set was surrounded by police cars,” Bellario said. “Apparently residents in the neighborhood phoned the police and told them there were two guys driving around waving a gun out of the window.”

Bellario said he and others tried to explain to police that it was a movie shoot, and that the gun was a decoy. However, he says, after several minutes of questioning, Woodbridge police determined that neither the producer nor the director had a permit to film, nor did they have a permit for the air-soft pellet gun, Bellario says.

“I was the only one arrested that day for possession of a handgun, and now face up to five years of prison,” he said.

Bellario, who also owns Animal House Comedy Club in Bayville according to his LinkedIn page, said he started the GoFundMe page to appeal to the entertainment industry to help one of their own.

“I spent four days at Middlesex County jail until my family was able to post bond for me,” Bellario wrote. “The producer of the movie told my family that he would indeed bail me out, but when he found out the bail was $10,000 he declined to help and left me there and left my family frantic as to how to arrange bail and get me released. He ignored my family’s phone calls and subsequently my family had to lay out over $4,500 thus far for the bail bondsman and other expenses.”

Epyx Productions maintains a blog about its movies and a Twitter account; Joseph responded to a tweet about Bellario’s claim directing a reporter to contact his lawyer, Long Island attorney Robert Goldman.

Goldman said he could not address the issue of whether Epyx Productions lacked permits to film in Woodbridge.

“I can’t comment to whether he lacked permits because that investigation is continuing,” Goldman said. But Goldman said Joseph did attempt to post bail for Bellario and said Joseph was advised he could not do so.

Bellario said he does not fault the police or the residents who called 911.

“As actors we all want to work and get ourselves exposure, but we also need to hold the industry to (a) higher standard as well and serve as a valuable (lesson) to not let what happened to me happen to other actors,” he wrote.

Photo: Carlo Bellario in a photo on his GoFundMe page.