JOSETTE WRIGHT -12 yo - (1994) /Convicted: Anthony DiPippo - Carmel CA

DiPippo is found guilty again

2nd conviction given in 1994 Wright murder

9:52 PM, May. 9, 2012

Anthony DiPippo confers with his attorney Jonathan Edelstein at the Putnam
County Courthouse Monday in the Putnam County during his retrial. / Joe
Larese/The Journal News


Written by Terence Corcoran

For the second time in his life, Anthony DiPippo has been convicted of the
October 1994 rape and murder of 12-year-old Josette Wright of Carmel.

DiPippo, now 36, bowed his head and slumped his shoulders Wednesday when the
jury forewoman twice answered “guilty” after Judge Barry E. Warhit asked
for the verdict on two counts of second-degree murder and first-degree
rape, both felonies.

Two young women in the group of family and
friends who supported DiPippo and came to court for him each day sobbed
softly in the row behind him as Warhit scheduled sentencing for Aug. 8
and ordered him held in the Putnam County jail until then.

DiPippo, a former Patterson man, and Andrew Krivak, formerly of Stormville, were
convicted at separate trials in 1997 of the rape and murder of Josette,
a seventh-grader at George Fischer Middle School in Carmel, in the back
of Krivak’s van on Fields Lane in Patterson on Oct. 3, 1994.

While Krivak, 34, remains in the state prison system, an appeals court last
year ordered a new trial for DiPippo that got under way April 23. The
appeals court found that DiPippo’s attorney at his first trial had a
potential conflict of interest that he failed to reveal to the court.

The jury of seven men and five women deliberated for parts of three days
before returning with a verdict about 4:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Putnam
County Court in Carmel.

Josette’s mother, Susan Wright, who
endured another trial 16 years after juries convicted DiPippo and Krivak
in the rape and murder of the youngest of her three daughters, praised
the jury and Chief Assistant District Attorney Christopher York.

“This is an occasion to celebrate a new sense of justice for Josette,” Wright said.

She recalled her daughter, who would have turned 30 on May 31, as a
“beautiful, delightful, funny” girl who “is always part of me.”

District Attorney Adam Levy was pleased with the decision.

“The first jury got it right and the second jury got it right,” Levy said.
“Anthony DiPippo raped Josette Wright and he killed her and now he’s
going back to jail where he belongs.”

Levy said he felt the
defense of Robert Isseks of Middletown and Jonathan Edelstein of
Manhattan made a costly error when they put DiPippo on the stand.
Witnesses testified to hearing DiPippo say after his arrest in 1996 that
he could not believe “Krivak ratted me out.”

DiPippo claimed on
the stand that he heard a reporter ask him after his 1996 arrest how it
felt that his best friend ratted him out and DiPippo said he was merely
repeating what the reporter had said. But under cross-examination,
DiPippo admitted that in 1996, if he had believed someone had ratted him
out, he would have taken matters into his own hands.

“I think that corroborated Denise Rose’s fear,” said Levy, referring to Denise
Rose Ayala, one of three other people in Krivak’s van the night Josette
was raped and murdered.

“I think the jury was able to see the
whole demeanor of the defendant and what he was about,” said York, who
was assisted in his prosecution by attorney Kimberly Pelesz of
Westchester County.

Putnam County Sheriff Donald B. Smith, whose investigators handled the case, praised the jury for its verdict.

“They obviously studied the evidence intelligently and deliberated carefully
in arriving at the appropriate verdict,” Smith said.

Denise Rose Ayala testified at the earlier trials and again this time to witnessing
the attack. But she admitted that she did not come forward for more than
a year because she feared DiPippo would hurt her. But she also
testified to hanging out with DiPippo in the months after she witnessed
the crime, including going on drug runs, and said they had consensual
sex.

Two other men who were in the van that night and previously
gave statements implicating DiPippo and Krivak — Adam Wilson and William
MacGregor — took the stand at this trial and recanted their earlier
statements, saying police coerced them. But jurors chose to believe Rose
over the two men.

Isseks, one of DiPippo’s lawyers, said afterward that he would appeal. “We’re very disappointed,” Isseks said.

DiPippo’s stepfather, Larry Bria, a businessman who has funded DiPippo’s appeals,
said he would continue his fight to exonerate his stepson.

“We’re going to appeal it and we’re going to be back here (Putnam Court)
again,” Bria said. “The two boys in front recanted. Denise Rose is
lying.”

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