Isle cruise assault suspect
indicted in N.Y. slaying
GARDEN CITY, N.Y. » Daniel Pelosi, the Long Island electrician who became the focus of tabloid headlines -- and a grand jury probe -- after he married the widow of bludgeoned investment banker Theodore Ammon, was charged with second-degree murder in connection with his death in 2001.
Ammon, whose estate was worth a reported $100 million, ran the private equity firm Chancery Lane Capital and was chairman of Jazz at Lincoln Center.
"An indictment has been filed by a special grand jury," Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota said.
Three lawyers accompanied Pelosi when he surrendered for processing and arraignment Tuesday at Riverhead, Long Island. Pelosi was held without bail by State Supreme Court Justice Robert W. Doyle after a defense lawyer, Gerald Shargel, entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.
Pelosi, 40, of Hampton Bays, was identified last summer by a Long Island judge as the prime suspect in the killing.
He also is awaiting a May trial in Hawaii for allegedly assaulting a crew member during a Maui dinner cruise in January. Pelosi is charged with first-degree assault for allegedly punching Larry Gronau in the face. Circuit Judge Joseph Cardoza set a May 17 trial date.
Maui prosecutors said Pelosi became angry because a crew member decided to stop serving alcohol to a woman who was with him on the Jan. 18 cruise aboard the Maui Princess.
Crew members were helping passengers board a shuttle to take them to Lahaina when Pelosi grabbed Gronau by the neck and complained about the decision to stop serving the woman alcohol, authorities said. Gronau pushed him away, and Pelosi punched him in the face, his accusers said. Gronau was treated for facial fractures, prosecutors said.
Pelosi, who married Ammon's widow three months after his death, had helped oversee the installation of a security system at the millionaire's estate.
Ammon, a former general partner at the investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., was found slain in his sprawling Long Island mansion on Oct. 22, 2001. An autopsy showed he was smashed in the head with a blunt object.
Both Pelosi and his lawyer have repeatedly proclaimed his innocence.
Pelosi showed up unannounced in a Suffolk County courtroom last Thursday, ready to surrender even before charges were filed against him. Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota said he was baffled by the stunt, and said at that time the grand jury had not completed its work.
"He showed up on a rumor," Spota said yesterday.
Pelosi, a blue collar worker with a record of drunken driving arrests and other skirmishes with law enforcement, attracted tabloid headlines when he married widow Generosa Ammon. She was just days away from finalizing a nasty divorce with Ammon when he was killed.
In addition to their homes in East Hampton and on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, the Ammons had maintained a home outside London.
After their marriage, Pelosi and Ammon and her two children briefly moved to England seeking privacy, but returned within months when he had to face a drunken driving charge in East Hampton. She later moved into Pelosi's modest home in Hampton Bays.
Shortly after her marriage to Pelosi, Generosa Ammon was diagnosed with cancer; she died in August 2003. She had already split with Pelosi after just over a year of marriage and returned with her children to the East Hampton mansion. He received a reported $2 million post-nuptial payment, but nothing in her will.
Generosa Ammon left her late husband's fortune to their two children and a foundation formed after his October 2001 killing.
The children's British nanny, Kathryn Ann Mayne, was named guardian of the two teenagers, given $1 million and guaranteed residence at the Ammons' East Hampton mansion for the rest of her life.
Pelosi's attorneys are challenging the validity of the will in court, and Ammon's sister is fighting for custody of the children. The teenagers have said in a television interview that they would prefer to live with Pelosi.
But the case held even more bizarre twists.
Last summer, Pelosi spirited Generosa Ammon's ashes out of a Manhattan funeral home last summer and was photographed "having a drink" with her remains in the hotel bar where the couple first met.
Mrs. Ammon's attorney threatened legal action, and Pelosi subsequently returned the ashes.
