DiGuglielmo: "This is Just a Small Hiccup"

Amid vows to continue to his fight, Richard DiGuglielmo was re-sentenced to serve out the remainder of his prison term for the 1996 shooting of Charles Campbell today.

The formal decision, announced last week, came at 2 p.m. in White Plains.

"This is just a small hiccup," DiGuglielmo, a 45-year-old former NYPD officer and Dobbs Ferry resident, said in a statement. "We will continue to fight."

He was joined by dozens of emotional family and friends at the courthouse, including a number of supportive co-workers from his current job doing concrete and blasting work in the the Harlem River tunnel. 

"This is a tragedy on all counts," said DiGuglielmo's life-long friend, Vik Golio.  "It wasn't Richie that started the altercation."

DiGugliemo fatally shot Campbell after a heated parking dispute broke out among Campbell and DiGugliemo's father and brother-in-law. 

DiGugliemo testified in his trial that he was acting as a police officer, protecting his father from an aggressor, while the prosecution maintained it was murder.

"The victim's family never fought for vengeance, just for justice," Debra Cohen, a lawyer for the Campbell family, said today.

In 2008, Judge Rory J. Bellantoni of Westchester County Court ruled to release DiGuglielmo on the basis that witnesses to the crime had been mishandled by police and prosecutors.

"It was a total shock," Cohen said. "If you read the judge's rulings you'll see that they are completely devoid of logic and fact."

Agreeing with Cohen's sentiment,  a panel of four appellate judges ruled last Tuesday that despite any mistreatment of witnesses, their testimonies should still be upheld in court, and ended DiGuglielmo's 18 months of freedom.

"Courts do not usually free people convicted of felonies," said Andrew Schapiro, DiGuglielmo's defense attorney. "But they did so in this case because they found that Richard did not get a fair trial."

Schapiro, who has represented DiGuglielmo since the case was successfully appealed, said he has befriended the DiGuglielmo family and become not just professionally but personally invested in the case.

"I was incredibly upset when I got the news--crushed," Schapiro told Patch.  

DiGuglielmo will return to prison to serve out the remainder of his 20-year-to-life term--he has already served 11--but both he and Schapiro remain hopeful for yet another appeal.

"The next step is to go to the New York State Court of Appeals," Schapiro said, but admitted the process can be slow.  "We won't know whether they will hear the case until the end of summer."