A Bronx Tale’s Reduced Jailtime Ending
December 23rd, 2008 by Alex
In what could have been a final re-write to the movie known as life, former actor Lillo Brancato avoided a second-degree murder charge for the shooting death of an off duty police officer.
Nothing about this one is pretty. A dead cop, an angry relative, one man in jail for life and Lillo Brancato with a 3 year sentence (almost fully served by now).
After a night of getting hammered, Brancato and his partner Steven Armento broke into an apartment looking for pills of the prescription nature. The case is a lot of ‘he said / she said’ and boils down to the fact that Brancato wasn’t aware his partner in the robbery attempt had a gun on him.
Interestingly, Brancato said in court that his addiction to heroin and pills all started with teenage drinking and marijuana use. The old gateway theory in action…
Before you think the famous guy is getting off easy, it looks like prosecutors are looking for a maximum sentence of 15 years for the attempted robbery charge against Brancato. Sentencing is January 9th of next year.
Harshest Punishment of the Year Award
December 8th, 2006 by Alex
Carmen Granata, a 23 year old Michigan native, likes to party. In Eastpointe, where she owns a house, Carmen decided to have a BBQ and invite friends over. I’ve had plenty of BBQ’s before, and as most people know, some are relaxed and some can get a little rowdy every once in a while. Carmen’s was definitely the 2nd of the two options.
Neighbors called police on her two times between 12AM and 1AM. At close to 4AM, one of Carmen’s friends went outside her porch to talk on a cellphone. The police were called a 3rd time and Carmen was given a ticket for violating the city’s noise ordinance.
This is where it turns weird – thinking that she’d just get a simple fine, Carmen plead Guilty to the noise violation. Biiiig mistake. Judge Norene Redmond gave her 30 days in jail for the infraction. It turns out neighbors had signed a petition saying her house was the site of frequent parties and this heavily swayed the judge.
Surprisingly, her punishment didn’t stop there. Carmen was sentenced to 2 years of drug testing on random date’s each month. Then, she was handed another 2 years worth of probation with daily breath tests for alcohol.
I’ve never heard of or read about such a horribly out-of-place punishment for what is a relatively minor infraction. I can understand the neighbors frustration, but putting a 23 year old girl behind bars for 30 days? That’s just cold.
Carmen’s family has hired a lawyer to get the Guilty plea thrown out of court, an hopefully repeal the sentence handed to her. For her sake, let’s hope it works.
[via Newsvine]
