Completely Legal

It’s up to the jury now.

Twelve jurors listened today to more than four hours of closing arguments in the murder trial of Werner Lippe, accused of killing his wife of 18 years during a bitter divorce fight in October 2008 and disposing of her body without a trace.

Lippe, a 68-year-old jeweler, remained stoic as Assistant District Attorney Christine O’Connor urged the seven men and five women on the jury to believe that Lippe’s confession to a friend, who was wearing a police wire, had been both truthful and voluntary.

Defense lawyer Andrew Rubin argued during his closing statements that it was a false confession borne out of paranoia, fear and confusion. There is no body, no eyewitnesses and no forensic evidence in the case.

O’Connor ended her summations by playing a recording of Werner Lippe telling his friend, “She doesn’t exist. You cannot find her. It’s impossible.” As the tape played, those words appeared on a screen with a photo a smiling Faith Lippe. Her cousin, Shari Caradonna, walked out of the courtroom in tears.

Faith Lippe was a nutritionist in the Ossining schools. She was 49 when she disappeared.

Westchester County Judge Barbara Zambelli will instruct the jury on the law Monday morning, and deliberations will begin immediately afterwards.

Lippe faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder.

This is his second trial. His first trial ended in February with a hung jury, which was unable to reach a verdict after 27 hours of deliberations. The vote was 7 to 5 for acquittal.

Werner Lippe does not look like the same man he did two years ago, when he allegedly knocked his wife unconscious and pushed her body into a backyard burn barrel, a state police detective testified today.

“He was bigger, more husky then,” said David Atkins, the lead investigator in the case. “He definitely looks more (like a) fragile, older man now.”

Atkins remarks came as Westchester County prosecutors try for a second time to convict Lippe, a 68-year-old jeweler, of second-degree murder in the death of his 49-year-old wife, Faith Lippe, with whom he was locked in a contentious divorce.

Lippe told police he last saw his wife leave their house with a manilla envelope at 1:45 p.m. Oct. 3, 2008 and be whisked away by a dark-colored vehicle. He reported her missing the next afternoon, after returning from lunch with a friend in Connecticut.

But, weeks later, Lippe told a friend — who was wearing a police wire — that he knocked his wife unconscious on Oct. 3, put her body in a drum and incinerated her. He repeated that story to police Oct. 30, 2008 and was arrested. He has been held without bail at the county jail in Valhalla since then.

Lippe’s lawyer argues that his client, fueled by fear and paranoia, gave a false confession in a misguided attempt to be left alone. He repeated it to police so they would let him see a judge, who he thought would instantly see how ridiculous the story was.

Lippe’s first trial earlier this year ended with a hung jury, which voted seven to five for an acquittal.

Lippe’s state of mind in the days and weeks after his wife’s disappearance — which Rubin claims was so crazed that he concocted the confession — was a theme Rubin revisited with Atkins. During cross-examination,  Atkins confirmed that Lippe told police that he was under stress and “having a lot of crazy thoughts.” He also said an incoherent Lippe called state police at least once. He acknowledged joking with Learnihan that “it takes a nut to catch a nut,” but he said the remark was just an icebreaker.

Atkins said he wasn’t necessarily looking for incriminating evidence against Lippe, but suspected Lippe knew more than what he was telling police. Once Lippe emerged as the prime suspect, Atkins said, state police investigators questioned New York City police to see if Lippe was known to have underworld connections through his jewelry business that could have helped him carry out her murder.

They found none and contend that he acted alone.

“Besides Werner Lippe, were there any other suspects in this case?” Rubin asked.

Atkins never had to answer. Assistant District Attorney Christine O’Connor objected to the question, and county Judge Barbara Zambelli sustained the objection.

A theory that Faith Lippe, on the day she vanished, may have been en route to pay a hit man to kill her husband was “so far-fetched that it didn’t make sense,” Atkins said.

The trial will continue on Wednesday.

It’s awful to have to testify against your own father when he’s charged with murdering your mother.

Andrew Lippe has had to do it twice.

Lippe, the 16-year-old son of accused killer Werner Lippe, took the stand for the second time this year in Westchester County Court, where the elder Lippe is charged with second-degree murder in the disappearance of his 49-year-old wife, Faith.

Faith Lippe, a nutritionist for Ossining schools, was last seen alive on Oct. 3, 2008. No one has heard from her since. Her husband of 18 years allegedly knocked her unconscious with a piece of wood during an argument Oct. 3, dragged her behind their home on Little Lake Road in Cortlandt and burned her body in a 55-gallon barrel for 24 hours until her remains were nothing but ash.

He told as much to a friend and later to police but recanted his confession, saying he made up the story in a misguided attempt to be left alone. His first trial ended with a hung jury, who voted 7 to 5 for acquittal.

The teenaged Lippe was calm and composed today in front of the jury, as he was in January at his father’s first trial. He testified about the strife in the family’s home because his parents were divorcing. He said that two days after his mother vanished, his father lit a bonfire behind their home, spread new topsoil over the area when the fire went out, and sprinkled the same area with spices when police dogs showed up.

Prosecutors contend Lippe’s actions are evidence that he was trying to cover up all traces of his wife’s remains.

Under cross examination, Andrew Lippe said his mother could be controlling and that his father had problems with his eyesight — a reference to Werner Lippe’s insistence that he last saw his wife leaving the house and getting into a mysterious dark vehicle that he couldn’t describe further.

Also testifying against Lippe today was Meryl Learnihan, the wife of one of the prosecutions star witnesses, James Learnihan, who had worn a police wire that recorded Lippe’s confession. Meryl Learnihan told the jury that Faith Lippe, who she described as a devoted mother, was making “serious plans” for a new life after her divorce. She said Werner Lippe had left a message on their answering machine saying that Faith was missing and that he was felling overwhelmed by the situation.

Werner Lippe, a 68-year-old jewelry designer whose celebrity clients include Donald Trump and Oprah Winfrey, has been held without bail at the county jail in Valhalla since his arrest on Oct. 30, 2008. His trial continues next week before county Judge Barbara Zambelli.

Andrew Lippe and his 14-year-old sister, Stephanie, continue to live with Andrew’s longtime tae kwon do instructor and attend school.

Round 2.

The same prosecutors, same defense lawyer and same defendant returned to Westchester County Judge Barbara Zambelli’s second-floor courtroom today to retry Werner Lippe for the alleged murder of his wife, Faith, nearly two years ago.

Click here to read about the lawyers’ opening statements to the jury.

Lippe’s first jury was deadlocked, voted 7 to 5 for acquittal in February. This time around, jurors were specifically asked if they watched “CSI” or similar TV shows, since there is no body, no witnesses and no forensic evidence in the case.

Assistant District Attorney John O’Rourke, who gave closing arguments in Lippe’s first trial, opened for the people today. That likely will mean ADA Christine O’Connor will summarize. Veteran defense lawyer Andrew Rubin continues to represent Lippe, who is approaching his second year at the Westchester County jail, where he has been remanded since his Oct. 30 arrest.

O’Rourke, taking a piece of Rubin’s opening argument from the first trial, said Lippe didn’t have to be “Superman” to burn his 49-year-old wife’s slender body to ash on Oct. 3, 2008 and dispose of the remains without leaving a shred of evidence. Rubin countered with another image, saying Lippe was no “evil genius” and was not responsible for his wife’s disappearance.

Lippe’s confession to his wife’s murder was another point of contention between the lawyers, with O’Rourke saying it was proof of his guilt and Rubin saying it was proof that Lippe was coerced into making up an outlandish story so that an old friend, who was working with police, would leave him alone.

The trial is expected to continue Wednesday and last for three weeks. The jury consists of seven men, five women and five alternates.

Eight years for gun possession. 20 to life for a home break-in.

These are decisions handed down by two judges today in separate cases against two unlucky defendants from Yonkers.

The gun case first. In January, a jury convicted a 20-year-old Dante Thatcher of second-degree and third-degree criminal possession of a weapon. Authorities say he was acting suspiciously one night on Riverdale Avenue back in 2008, and when the cops approached him, he threw a loaded gun to the ground and ran off.  Police caught him two weeks later.

Thatcher has no felony convictions as an adult. And yet acting state Supreme Court Justice William A. Wetzel is sending him upstate for eight years. I’ve seen drunk drivers who have killed people in Westchester not get this kind of prison time. Granted, under the law, second-degree gun possession requires a 3 1/2 year sentence no matter what, and as a “C” felony, carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. So it’s not as bad as it could have been. But still.

The other case involves a man who robbed a little old lady in her home on McLean Avenue in Yonkers last year. He went to trial and was convicted of third-degree robbery, burglary and having stolen property. The defendant, Robert E. Whittle, has been in and out of prison for the past 30 years on convictions for robbery, burglary and stolen property and drug possession.

Westchester prosecutors wanted him sentenced as a persistent violent felon, and today county Judge Barbara Zambelli granted their wish. Whittle, 48, will now be in prison for at least another 20 years and could die there. I’ve seen killers get 10 to 15 years on plea bargains. He’s a crook and he’s getting 20.

And people wonder why so many cases are pleaded out.

Accused wife-killer Werner Lippe will have to wait a while to return to the courtroom of Westchester County Judge Barbara Zambelli. Jury selection for Lippe’s second trial was supposed to start today but was pushed back in part because the judge is in pre-trial hearings for another case. He is scheduled for an appearance before acting state Supreme Court Justice Richard A. Molea tomorrow.

Lippe is charged with second-degree murder in the disappearance of his wife, Faith Lippe, in October 2008. He confessed to knocking his wife unconscious in their Cortlandt home and then incinerating her body in a backyard burn barrel. He later argued that the confession was false, and that he made up that story out of fear and paranoia.

The first trial ended with a hung jury; a second trial was ordered by prosecutors.

Meanwhile, Judge Zambelli is dealing with another homicide case, this one involving a 22-year-old Mount Vernon man accused of shooting a younger man to death during the summer of 2008. Leroi Bouche is charged with second-degree murder in the Aug. 13, 2008 slaying of Shomari Knox, 19.

Knox was found dead in his maroon van at South Ninth Avenue and West Third Street by police, who were called there on a report of shots fired. He was shot in the back and the side of the neck.

Bouche, who has a criminal history that includes drug possession, was shot in the abdomen two weeks later in a playground at Seventh Avenue and West Fourth Street, near Levister Towers – about a block from where police said he shot Knox.

Photo of Leroi Bouche, left. Photo of Werner Lippe, upper left.

A pair of sentencings for two men convicted of violent crimes ….

Tomorrow, Westchester County Judge Barbara Zambelli is scheduled to sentence Kenneth West, who was convicted by a jury of brutally killing Josephine O’Keefe in her Pelham apartment in 1983. West is facing 25 years to life for the cold-case slaying, which was brought to trial by newly-discovered DNA evidence. O’Keefe’s daughter, Sue Hupplesberg, is expected to give a victim’s impact statement at the sentencing.  Click here to read the stories about the jury’s verdict.

UPDATE: WEST WAS SENTENCED TO 25 YEARS TO LIFE.

Then, on Thursday, after five (!) delays, state Supreme Court Justice Lester Adler may get to hand down his sentence to Tyrone Haywood, convicted of raping two prostitutes who he picked up near the Mount Vernon/Bronx border. Haywood hired a new lawyer for his sentencing, which has caused the matter to be adjourned over and over again. Click here to read about the case, including the conviction of his girlfriend for evidence tampering.

UPDATE: JUDGE DENIED HAYWOOD’S MOTION TO SET ASIDE THE VERDICT AND RE-SET SENTENCING FOR APRIL 30.

There’s a website called Robeprobe.com, and if enough attorneys and their clients in the Lower Hudson Valley find out about this, things could get very interesting.

Basically, it’s a rating system for judges at all levels, from U.S. Supreme down to municipal judges. Even judges from other countries are listed.  Billing itself as “the world’s most trusted judge rating site” (like there are so many others), the site’s search engine asks you to choose the jurisdiction (state, county, municipal, appellate, etc.) then type in the name of the judge and give them one to 5 stars. If your judge isn’t listed, you can add him/her to the list.

I typed in a few names of judges from Westchester County. The only ones who were listed were State Supreme Court Justices Lester Adler and Richard Molea, and county Judge Barbara Zambelli. Judge Francis Nicolai, the court administrator for the 9th Judicial District, was listed, as was Court of Appeals Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman – the top judge in New York state.

No one has rated them yet, so if you’re so inclined, you know where to find them.

Logo courtesy of RobeProbe.com

Apparently some jurors in the Kenneth West trial got snowed in and couldn’t make it to the Westchester County Courthouse today. Judge Barbara Zambelli adjourned the case to Wednesday (tomorrow is her calendar day), and the last-minute postponement surprised prosecutors and the defense, who were ready for closing arguments this morning. Also caught by surprise was a certain newspaper reporter who arrived at the courthouse a few minutes late, dashed up the stairs and found a locked, empty courtroom on the second floor.