Almost Paradise

Speaker 1 If you ever worry about how safe your home really is, you need to hear about Simply Safe's early access Black Friday sale.

Speaker 1 Old school security systems typically only react after someone breaks in, but Simply Safe is different.

Speaker 1 Simply Safe's Active Guard Outdoor Protection uses AI-powered cameras that detect threats outside your home and alert real security agents.

Speaker 1 Those agents take action while the intruder is still outside, talking to them through the camera, triggering a siren or spotlight, and letting them know police are on the way.

Speaker 1 That's how you stop a crime before it starts. There are no long-term contracts or hidden fees, plus a 60-day money-back guarantee.
Simply Safe's been named best home security system by U.S.

Speaker 1 News and World Report five years running. Don't miss out on Simply Safe's biggest sale of the year, 60% off.

Speaker 1 Right now, our listeners can save 60% off a SimplySafe home security system at simplysafe.com/slash 48 hours. That's simply safe.com/slash 48 hours.
There's no safe like simply safe.

Speaker 2 Don't let the holidays derail your fitness. Stay on track with hydro.
20 minutes rowing on a hydro targets 86% of your muscles as Olympians guide you from incredible locations worldwide.

Speaker 2 Running can't compete. That's why 90% stick with hydro a year later.
GQ named the hydro arc the best rower of 2025. And every hydro comes with free shipping, a 30-day trial, and warranty.

Speaker 2 Go to hydro.com code fit and save up to 600 bucks on your next hydro. Hydro.com code fit.

Speaker 4 The Hamptons is a playground for the rich and the famous. A couple hours from Manhattan.
Money runs runs like water. Fancy cars, huge estates, security gates, seclusion.

Speaker 4 In October of 2001, Ted Ammon was brutally murdered in his East Hampton mansion.

Speaker 7 There was nothing that was really disturbed in the house. There was no ransacking.
The perpetrators had opened up the door to the bedroom, walked in, and approached the bed.

Speaker 7 This was an individual sleeping, somebody who's jumped on and doesn't have a chance to do much fighting back.

Speaker 7 He was beaten about the head and probably fairly early on in the assault was dragged off the bed.

Speaker 7 The individual over him is literally raining blows down on his head until he's struck some 30 to 35 times, which is a conservative estimate.

Speaker 4 Ted Ammon,

Speaker 4 I thought he was the greatest. He's the all-American guy.
Six foot four,

Speaker 4 good-looking, smart, got a personality that'll knock your socks off. This guy's doing billion-dollar deals.
It's not surprising that Gennarosa ended up with a person like Ted Ammon.

Speaker 4 It fits the profile of the person that she had been looking for. Gennarosa was my first cousin.

Speaker 4 We grew up together in California, and there was never a doubt in my mind that Gennarosa would succeed when she went to New York. Ted saw that fire in her eye.

Speaker 4 Don't really think that he knew what he was getting in for. I sincerely think that they were very happy together at first.
I think they were best friends. They were partners.

Speaker 4 And then it just got uglier and uglier.

Speaker 5 She was

Speaker 5 every blue-collar guy's dream.

Speaker 5 She was a woman divorcing in the prime of her life. She had everything going for a guy like me.

Speaker 4 Danny Pelosi walked into Gennarosa's life just from nowhere.

Speaker 5 I walked in, I got a beer at the bar, and the bartender looked at me and he says, Hey, buddy, I think you're in the wrong place.

Speaker 4 Danny and Generosa?

Speaker 3 Come on. He's a street guy.

Speaker 5 Are you kidding me? I was in love with this woman.

Speaker 4 Ted Ammo's dead. There's a lot of money at play.

Speaker 5 My first thought when I heard about the murder was, Where were the children? That's what went through my mind.

Speaker 4 This story has everything. It's got murder, mega bucks, anger, affairs.
It's got glamour. It's got poverty.
It's got revenge.

Speaker 4 And an ending you won't believe.

Speaker 5 It was the princess and the pupa.

Speaker 5 Let me turn back into a frog, please. It's easier to be a frog.

Speaker 3 Murder in the Hamptons.

Speaker 3 It has all the ingredients of a Hollywood drama, a horror story, and a fairy tale setting complete with love and hate, money, and murder.

Speaker 8 It's a good story, it's a big story. I mean, bad news is a good story.

Speaker 3 Kieran Crowley, a reporter for the New York Post, has written a book, Almost Paradise, about the murder of Ted Ammon.

Speaker 8 This guy was tall, dark, and handsome.

Speaker 3 He was brilliant. Ted Ammon had a middle-class childhood spent side by side with his sister Sandy.
He loved playing the trumpet.

Speaker 3 He breezed through Bucknell College as a frat boy and lacrosse player. He married and moved to London to practice law.

Speaker 8 He was so sharp that he had a tutor and he studied for and took and passed the bar exams without going to law school. That's how smart he was.

Speaker 3 When his first marriage ended less than 10 years later, Ted was looking for an apartment in New York City. He booked an appointment with a real estate agent named Generosa Rand.
He didn't show up.

Speaker 3 He's being flaky.

Speaker 8 He blew her off. She called him the next morning and basically cursed him out and said, you know, who do you think you are?

Speaker 3 Generosa was tough and outspoken, and Ted Ammon wanted to meet her in person.

Speaker 8 She told him, I'm not really a real estate agent. You know, I'm an artist and a photographer.
And he found her fascinating. She was charming, and sparks flew right away.

Speaker 4 They met on kind of rough terms.

Speaker 3 Gennarosa's cousin, Al Le Gay.

Speaker 4 I think when they got together,

Speaker 4 they were

Speaker 4 pretty interesting couple because they're both strong people.

Speaker 3 Ted and Gennarosa married in 1986.

Speaker 3 Ted went on to make tens of millions of dollars on Wall Street before he quit. That was when he and Gennarosa adopted two-year-old twins from the Ukraine.
Did they seem happy?

Speaker 4 Seemed extremely happy.

Speaker 3 A few years later, the Ammons abruptly left New York to move into this rambling stone manor house in the English countryside.

Speaker 9 She was trying to pull Ted out of New York City in the very busyness of his life.

Speaker 3 Ed Meyer was one of Gennarosa's lawyers.

Speaker 9 She persuaded him to start to relax, to enjoy the family, enjoy the English countryside.

Speaker 3 But the couple didn't enjoy it for very long. Ted took frequent trips back to New York and Gennarosa became convinced they were not all for business.

Speaker 3 She began telling friends Ted was having an affair. By the summer of 2000, they were both back in Manhattan but living separately.

Speaker 3 Gennarosa had filed for divorce and was looking for more than $1 million a year in living expenses.

Speaker 9 Between $100,000 and $150,000 a month was not that much, believe it or not, when you're talking about that kind of income.

Speaker 3 Gennarosa evidently wanted to hurt Ted and not just financially.

Speaker 9 She was in the business of riling up, riling up her husband.

Speaker 3 Before the divorce was final, she found a new boyfriend, Danny Pelosi, and he was everything Ted was not.

Speaker 5 She came from a world

Speaker 5 of enormous wealth. Been to every continent and I've been to Florida.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 It all started in the fall of 2000 when Gennarosa hired Danny to supervise the multi-million dollar renovation of her new townhouse.

Speaker 5 I ended up staying at the job instead of driving all the way back to Long Island. And one morning, Gennarosa showed up and found me sleeping in the truck.

Speaker 5 And she said, none of her workers sleep in the truck. She turned around and said, you come stay at the Stanhope.
I'll get you a room at the Stanhope.

Speaker 3 The Stanhope is one of the swankiest hotels in New York. Generosa and her two children were living there during the renovation.

Speaker 5 Of course I was flirting. I was in the middle of a divorce and this was a very attractive, elegant lady who told me she was getting divorced.

Speaker 5 She told me she hadn't had sex in two years.

Speaker 3 Before long the two were dating. His sister Barbara watched as the woman who had everything decided she had to have Danny.

Speaker 10 She was crazy about Danny. That was the first thing I picked up on right away.

Speaker 3 But they were a good match?

Speaker 10 They were a perfect match, I thought,

Speaker 10 because she was very good to him and she genuinely cared about him.

Speaker 5 And just to think she wanted something to do with me blew me away. It was the biggest ego trip in the world.

Speaker 3 Danny Pelosi is a high school dropout and former drug and alcohol abuser with a wrap sheet filled mostly with drinking and driving charges. But things were looking up.

Speaker 3 He'd no longer have to worry about drinking or driving.

Speaker 5 The next thing I know it, I was driving around in a limousine, putting a wine menu in front of me that's not even written in English.

Speaker 5 I drink by light. It's that easy.

Speaker 3 That summer, Danny became a fixture in the Hamptons.

Speaker 3 Did he look funny in that mansion in East Hampton?

Speaker 10 He didn't know what to do. He didn't know how to act.
He would sit out there sometimes on the front porch with his cell phone and his coffee. and say to me, can you believe this?

Speaker 10 Can you believe we're here?

Speaker 3 Did you fall in love with her? I mean, did you love her?

Speaker 5 Yes, I absolutely did. I absolutely fell in love with her.

Speaker 3 But Gennarosa's divorce from Ted Ammon was consuming most of her time by the summer of 2001.

Speaker 8 The world's worst divorce. The divorce from hell.

Speaker 5 Now, for like a year and a half, they had no communication between each other.

Speaker 3 Instead, Danny says, the Ammons used private detectives to find out what they needed to know.

Speaker 5 It was like spy versus spy there. Generosa spy on Ted, Ted spy on Gennarosa.
There were people falling out of the trees at the beach house.

Speaker 3 Somebody fell out of the trees.

Speaker 5 Yeah, video recording.

Speaker 3 What were they recording?

Speaker 5 Me and Generosa in the backyard.

Speaker 3 That'll ruin the moment. Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 Oh yeah, it did. But the real victims, by all accounts, were Ted and Gennarosa's two children.

Speaker 5 The parents were so involved in the divorce they forgot about the kids. And it wasn't fair, it wasn't right.

Speaker 3 By October 2001, after more than a year of bitter feuding, Ted and Gennarosa Ammon were close to settling. Generosa would get about $25 million.

Speaker 9 I think he wanted to get it over with. They all needed to get it over with.

Speaker 3 But just before the divorce papers were to be signed, Ted Ammon was found bludgeoned to death in his East Hampton mansion. And the investigation began.

Speaker 2 Don't let the holidays derail your fitness. Stay on track with hydro.
20 minutes rowing on a hydro targets 86% of your muscles as Olympians guide you from incredible locations worldwide.

Speaker 2 Running can't compete. That's why 90% stick with hydro a year later.
GQ named the hydro arc the best rower of 2025. And every hydro comes with free shipping, a 30-day trial, and warranty.

Speaker 2 Go to hydro.com code fit and save up to 600 bucks on your next hydro. Hydro.com code fit.

Speaker 13 Hey, Ryan Reynolds here, wishing you a very happy half-off holiday because right now, Mint Mobile is offering you the gift of 50% off unlimited. To be clear, that's half price, not half the service.

Speaker 13 And Mint is still premium unlimited wireless for a great price. So that means a half day.
Yeah? Give it a try at mintmobile.com/slash switch.

Speaker 14 Upfront payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required. New customer offer for first three months only.
Speed slow under 35 gigabytes of networks busy. Taxes and fees extra.

Speaker 14 See mintmobile.com.

Speaker 3 Shortly after five in the afternoon on October 22nd, 2001, Ted Ammon's battered, naked body was found in his East Hampton mansion.

Speaker 7 The entire assault probably took place in less than five minutes.

Speaker 3 Prosecutor Janet Albertson.

Speaker 7 He had clearly had covers or bedding thrown over him. You can see the smears from the bloodstains on the side of the mattress and on the frame.

Speaker 7 He's got defensive wounds to the backs of his hands, which clearly indicated that he had been down on his hands and knees at some point with his hands over his head moving back and forth to try to protect himself.

Speaker 3 There were far more potential suspects than there were solid leads. There was Ted Ammon's ex-wife.
There was also his girlfriend, who was one of the last people to see him alive.

Speaker 3 And there was the business partner who discovered Ammon's body.

Speaker 3 But it didn't take long before police focused their attention where they usually do on the spouse, in this case, a very angry, very scorned Generosa Ammon.

Speaker 10 She despised him.

Speaker 3 Danny's sister Barbara saw the hatred. This was an ugly divorce.

Speaker 10 This was an ugly divorce.

Speaker 3 But Danny was also a suspect, especially when police found out that he was the one who'd hired a company to install a video surveillance system in the East Hampton mansion, which Ted Ammon used when Generosa wasn't there.

Speaker 3 Did he say where he wanted the cameras put?

Speaker 12 He left that basically up to me but he wanted a general location making sure all the certain areas were covered.

Speaker 3 This here is a live system was installed by John Kundal six months before the murder.

Speaker 3 It allowed Danny and Gennarosa to watch whatever was going on inside the house even at moments like this when Ted Ammon thought no one was watching.

Speaker 3 All they had to do was log on to their remote laptop computers.

Speaker 5 All I know is that you went to the thing, you hit beach house, and boom, there was the beach house. That's what I know.

Speaker 3 But he says the system was installed because Gennarosa wanted to spy on Ted as their divorce got more and more nasty.

Speaker 5 The system was installed originally

Speaker 5 to prove that Ted was removing items from the house.

Speaker 3 But police started to wonder, if Danny and Gennarosa could see when Ted Ammon was alone in the house, would they know when to make their move?

Speaker 3 I have to ask you this because people have said this about you and this is an awful lot of people.

Speaker 5 Oh I did not murder Ted Ammon.

Speaker 3 You knew what the question was.

Speaker 5 I know what the question was. I've been trying to scream it since day one.

Speaker 3 But Danny was a suspect from day one because the heart of the surveillance system, a computer hard drive that records images from the cameras, had been removed from its hiding place in a remote part of the house.

Speaker 7 The first thing you have to say is who would have known it was there? Much less known how to remove it.

Speaker 5 I never had anything to hide.

Speaker 3 But Danny claims he has an alibi for the night Ted Ammon was murdered. He can prove he drove out from Manhattan to Long Island very late Saturday night to attend a wedding the next day.

Speaker 3 He stopped at his sister's house, which is about an hour from East Hampton, where Ted Ammon was killed.

Speaker 10 I know that he arrived at 1.20.

Speaker 3 At about 2 a.m., Danny met up with a friend. He says they went out for beer.
Barbara's daughter, Kelly, remembers hearing Danny come home a little later. Did you talk to him?

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 11 He wanted to know where the blankets were so he can go to sleep.

Speaker 3 And you looked at the clock?

Speaker 15 Yeah.

Speaker 3 And what time was it? It said 3.

Speaker 11 I don't remember the other two numbers clear at all, but I just know for a fact that the first number was 3.

Speaker 9 They were not in or around the vicinity of Middle Lane and East Hampton at the time Ted Ammon was murdered. We had what I viewed as as an airtight alibi for both of them.

Speaker 3 But Danny and Generosa remained the focus of scrutiny and suspicion, and soon they gave everyone even more to talk about.

Speaker 3 Gennarosa, the wealthy widow, and Danny, her blue-collar boyfriend, got married in January of 2002, just three months after Ted Ammon's murder. Did you worry about how it would look?

Speaker 5 No, I had nothing to worry about.

Speaker 3 Did she worry about how it would look?

Speaker 5 No.

Speaker 5 No, not at all.

Speaker 3 And then Generosa surprised everyone when she moved with her two kids to Danny's hometown, Center Mariches, a nice town, but hardly a millionaire's playground.

Speaker 5 Bots of crazy kids. She wanted her kids to have a family.
She wanted me to be around my kids. My kids live five minutes from here.
All she wanted was a family.

Speaker 16 She wanted him to be close to his family.

Speaker 3 Joanne Matheson, who was Generosa's full-time housekeeper, says her boss was happy with her new life.

Speaker 16 Moment she was with Danny, she didn't care. If she was in East Hampton over there, it didn't matter to her.

Speaker 3 She was happy. Put buddy on the bogeyboard.

Speaker 3 But the fun would soon end.

Speaker 5 It was mind-blowing. It was earth-shattering.
It was unbelievable.

Speaker 3 Just months after they were married, Gennarosa learned she was dying of breast cancer. She was just 46.

Speaker 5 It was just like, what else can go wrong? How are these kids going to make make it through this? Not just me.

Speaker 3 Joanne says Gennarosa and Danny tried to make the best of the time they had left.

Speaker 17 He got along great. She thought he was really funny.

Speaker 7 They would play Scrabble

Speaker 16 all day long because now she was getting, you know, she was sick.

Speaker 3 But the investigation was continuing, and Gennarosa and Danny were now the prime suspects. It wasn't long before their marriage started to fall apart under the pressure of it all.

Speaker 5 Everything was going haywire.

Speaker 3 In July of 2003, after a year and a half of marriage, Gennarosa left Danny and moved with her two children back to the East Hampton mansion, where she would spend the last weeks of her life.

Speaker 10 Even after she was sick, she wanted to make sure that Danny was protected because her words to me was,

Speaker 10 This was my husband and my life. Danny had nothing to do with this and I'll make sure that Danny is always protected.

Speaker 3 Gennarosa Ammon died in August of 2003, leaving Danny as the lone suspect.

Speaker 5 I was freaking out. I was freaking out big time

Speaker 5 because that's when I realized this is real.

Speaker 5 It was part of her wish.

Speaker 5 It was part of her talks talks that we had.

Speaker 3 It made perfect sense to Danny Pelosi at the time going to the Stanhope Hotel for a farewell drink with his wife's ashes.

Speaker 5 She told me to take her remains and go to the bar and sit in the booth that we sat in every night.

Speaker 3 She told you she wanted you to do that.

Speaker 5 She told me just like I'm telling you right now. Did that seem weird?

Speaker 3 to you?

Speaker 5 Generosa was different.

Speaker 5 She was different.

Speaker 3 Photographer Robert Calfis found Danny sitting in a booth drinking a beer. That's the box for the ashes.

Speaker 3 He has his Garden State crematory and there was a, I guess it was a wedding ring set up on the napkin. And he ordered her a drink? Yep, Cousin Pauledon, like a lit cigarette there.

Speaker 3 When the New York Post ran the picture the next day, Danny started to have some regrets. Were you embarrassed by that?

Speaker 5 Was I embarrassed by that picture they showed? Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 3 But Danny Pelosi would soon have a lot more than his image to worry about. Do you look over your shoulder for cops?

Speaker 5 I don't have to look over my shoulder. They fly over my house.
They drive by my house. They harass my family.
They harass my friends.

Speaker 3 Danny had become the lead suspect in the murder of Ted Ammon.

Speaker 7 Ultimately, when you looked at everything together, it just always came back to him.

Speaker 3 Finally, in March 2004, after a two-and-a-half-year investigation, Danny Pelosi was arrested and charged with murder.

Speaker 7 We had some pretty powerful circumstantial evidence, but we, you know, did not have

Speaker 7 the smoking gun.

Speaker 3 Didn't have DNA, didn't have fingerprints, didn't have blood.

Speaker 7 And by no means was this a slam dunk.

Speaker 3 Good morning.

Speaker 3 Danny Pelosi hired one of the best defense lawyers money can buy, Jerry Chargell.

Speaker 18 You know, he may not speak the King's English, and he doesn't have a PhD.

Speaker 18 And in fact, he's a high school dropout but

Speaker 5 he's not a killer.

Speaker 3 There was no physical evidence linking him to the murder, no forensics, no witnesses and Chargell insists that Danny who was only Generosa's boyfriend at the time of the murder had no motive because he had no right to Ammon's wealth.

Speaker 18 I will tell you that there was absolutely no motive here. There was no financial motive and there was no other motive of any kind.

Speaker 10 There were a lot of people out there that had a lot more to benefit from Ted Ammon's death than Danny.

Speaker 3 In fact, according to attorney Ed Meyer, Danny actually got along with Ted Ammon.

Speaker 9 He liked Ted Ammon.

Speaker 9 I know he liked Ted Ammon.

Speaker 3 But everyone knew Gennarosa hated Ted Ammon. In fact, she hated him so much, she didn't want his family caring for her twins after her death.
Gennarosa had no family of her own.

Speaker 3 She was raised an orphan. Her mother died of breast cancer when Gennarosa was just 10.
Her father was an Italian sailor she never met. Eventually, she was taken in by Al Legay's family.

Speaker 4 When I remember her as a little girl, she had a pretty traumatic, tragic life. When she left here and she went to New York,

Speaker 4 It was like she closed that chapter of her life.

Speaker 3 As she entered the final chapter of her life, Gennarosa had to pick a guardian for her children. She thought Danny was unsuitable, so that left only one person, a 57-year-old British nanny, Kay Maine.

Speaker 3 Do the kids like her?

Speaker 5 No.

Speaker 3 They tell you that?

Speaker 5 Yes.

Speaker 3 Danny spoke to Gennarosa about how the kids felt about Kay.

Speaker 3 Your children are very upset. More upset than you know.

Speaker 3 Danny had a habit of recording his private conversations, he says, to protect himself legally. I'm very concerned for your children.
It's not good. It's not good at all.

Speaker 3 Look, Danny, you seem to forget. I'm still alive.
These are my children. I make the decisions about my children.

Speaker 5 They've lost their father, not in losing their mother. I'm not going to allow them kids to be raised like you are.

Speaker 5 I'm not.

Speaker 7 Danny, you and I don't understand how to raise children.

Speaker 3 I'm not raising my children the way you raise your children. Kay carries out my wishes with my children, period.

Speaker 3 When Generosa Ammon died in August of 2003, she took the answers to a lot of questions with her to the grave.

Speaker 3 Is it possible that Gennarosa, who made no secret of her hatred for Ted Ammon, could have done this?

Speaker 5 Let's ask that question again.

Speaker 3 Is it tough to answer?

Speaker 5 Go with that question again.

Speaker 3 There's a certain amount of logic to that. I mean, here is

Speaker 15 logic.

Speaker 5 And the next thing you know it, they're going to say I had part of it.

Speaker 3 Well, okay, I'll ask you that.

Speaker 3 Did she ask you for help?

Speaker 5 I have nothing to say.

Speaker 3 That's not the same as saying no.

Speaker 5 I have nothing to say.

Speaker 3 But prosecutor Janet Albertson insists Danny had a lot to say, which was great for her, not so great for him.

Speaker 7 He was his own worst enemy, as far as I'm concerned. He did a lot of talking.
And of course, anytime a defendant does a lot of talking,

Speaker 7 it's good for the people.

Speaker 5 Let's go to trial. I have nothing to hide.

Speaker 19 This episode is brought to you by Progressive Commercial Insurance. Business Business owners meet Progressive Insurance.

Speaker 19 They make it easy to get discounts on commercial auto insurance and find coverages to grow with your business. Quote in as little as eight minutes at progressivecommercial.com.

Speaker 19 Progressive Casualty Insurance Company, coverage provided and serviced by affiliated and third-party insurers. Discounts and covered selections not available in all states or situations.

Speaker 17 Big news: Wayfair's Black Friday sale is here. Right now, score up to 80% off everything home.
These are our best deals of the year. Shop Way Bear's Black Friday sale now at Waybear.com.

Speaker 14 Wayfair, Every Style, Every Home.

Speaker 3 See, this is a very sweet photo. Yeah.
And there he's giggling. He's never seen his father.

Speaker 7 Nope, only pictures.

Speaker 3 His father's never seen him. Nope.
Last year, when Danny Pelosi was arrested for murdering Ted Ammon and jailed to await trial, he was trying to move on with his life.

Speaker 3 He was expecting a new baby with his new fiancé, Jennifer Zolnowski.

Speaker 3 What's it like here by yourself? It's horrible.

Speaker 7 Everything I see reminds me of him.

Speaker 3 But now there is another woman in his life, Janet Albertson, the prosecutor.

Speaker 7 Danny Pelosi is a drinker, he's a gambler, he's a petty thief.

Speaker 3 Albertson can call him whatever she likes. Proving he's a murderer is a little more difficult.

Speaker 7 We're happy to be finally underway in this case, and we're hoping that the jury sees through the defense.

Speaker 3 As the trial begins, all Albertson has is a lot of circumstantial evidence to offer as proof that Danny killed for one of the oldest reasons in the world, money.

Speaker 7 I think that money is certainly at the top of the list.

Speaker 3 It's not a very exotic motive, is it?

Speaker 7 No, most murders aren't for exotic motives, except in novels.

Speaker 3 The jurors have no trouble believing that he saw a future with Generosa, a rich one, that would be richer with Ted Ammon out of the picture.

Speaker 21 He wasn't willing to give it up. It was all about the money.
All about the money.

Speaker 3 They can see why Pelosi might have wanted Ted Ammon killed, but it's a little harder to convince them how he could have done it.

Speaker 22 You didn't have anything that said absolutely he was there at that time

Speaker 22 or around that time when the murder occurred.

Speaker 3 So who says Danny Pelosi was at the murder scene? According to Janet Albertson, one very important person, Danny himself, who she says confessed to a number of people.

Speaker 7 I think he was his own worst enemy, and he's the only one who didn't realize it.

Speaker 3 But don't you have to be awfully stupid to admit to a murder?

Speaker 7 Yes, that's why the defendants are presumed to be innocent, not intelligent. Stupid people do stupid things, and that's how we catch them.

Speaker 3 The jurors heard from a devastating parade of witnesses. A contractor Danny worked with said Pelosi was talking about killing Ted Ammon a full year before the murder.

Speaker 3 Danny's ex-girlfriend testified he confessed to her and said Ammon, quote, cried like a bitch during the beating. She said when she asked Danny why he did it, he said, because I have a monster in me.

Speaker 3 But this man may be the most damaging witness of all. It's not just what he says, it's who he is.
Danny Pelosi's own father is a witness for the prosecution.

Speaker 3 Pelosi's father testifies that Danny asked him just hours after the murder how to dispose of something where no one could find it.

Speaker 3 The prosecution thinks Danny was trying to get rid of evidence from the crime scene, especially that hard drive with all those pictures from the night of the the murder.

Speaker 7 That unit recorded 24 hours a day. So, of course, it would have recorded the image of the murderer coming in, going out, and removing all of the evidence from the house.

Speaker 11 How do you feel when you see him?

Speaker 3 But for jurors, it isn't what his father said that was most telling. It was what Danny said as his father was leaving the courtroom.
Danny snarled at him in front of the jury and said, I hate him.

Speaker 3 You saw that.

Speaker 3 You saw

Speaker 3 Danny snap at his father. What effect did that have on you?

Speaker 15 That had a tremendous effect on me.

Speaker 15 Not just his relationship with his father, but

Speaker 15 the anger and the rage that suddenly came up just like that.

Speaker 18 In 35 years of being a criminal defense lawyer,

Speaker 18 I never saw a father come in voluntarily as he testified and give evidence against his son.

Speaker 18 Happy birthday to you!

Speaker 18 Happy birthday to you!

Speaker 3 Jerry Chargell argues Danny and his father have a love-hate relationship.

Speaker 3 These pictures were taken at a family reunion just one month after the murder. But Chargell points out it was a full year before Danny's father took his story to the police.

Speaker 3 And Chargel tells the jurors that each of the witnesses had a reason to lie about Danny confessing.

Speaker 18 No one has come in here without an axe to grind,

Speaker 18 an agenda that's hidden or not, a motive to falsify.

Speaker 7 Do you believe Danny was capable of doing this?

Speaker 15 Now I know this one.

Speaker 3 Another relative, Danny's sister, Barbara, was subpoenaed by the prosecution. Generosa had hired her to monitor the surveillance system on her laptop and spy on Ted in the mansion.

Speaker 3 She says she saw something suspicious earlier in the evening during a routine check, and that when Danny arrived the night of the murder, she asked him to log on and check it out.

Speaker 10 I think I heard

Speaker 10 Danny because I told him to go on the computer that night, because he honestly did not ask me to turn it on.

Speaker 3 But Albertson says Danny had his own reasons for logging on to the computer that night.

Speaker 7 I think what he wanted to know was, first of all, when Ted Ammon was at the house. I think he also had an interest in knowing whether anybody else was there.

Speaker 7 We would like the opportunity to present the jury.

Speaker 3 Janet Albertson has spent weeks telling her side of the story.

Speaker 3 Now it's Jerry Chargell's turn to tell his.

Speaker 18 Don't

Speaker 18 rush to judgment. Don't make any snap judgments.
Wait until you see the whole case.

Speaker 3 Chargel hammers away at the the fact that there is no evidence that Pelosi was even at the crime scene.

Speaker 18 Ted Ammon died at a time

Speaker 18 when Danny Pelosi, by the prosecution's own evidence, evidence that you heard earlier this week, was not on Eastern Long Island. And

Speaker 18 as far as I'm concerned, that's the case.

Speaker 3 Ted Ammon ate dinner at this restaurant, paid for his meal, and left at around 9.30 p.m.

Speaker 3 He then went to a beach near his house. At 944, Ammon made what could be the last phone call of his life to his girlfriend.
He said he saw something that scared him and he was heading back home.

Speaker 3 That phone call is the cornerstone of Chargel's defense.

Speaker 18 Some of us might walk into a bad neighborhood, feel uncomfortable, and leave, that's one thing. But to have what seemed to be a confrontation or near confrontation, I think is significant.

Speaker 3 Chargel says someone could have followed Ammon home from the beach and killed him. The timing of the call fits neatly into Chargell's theory.

Speaker 6 Time of death is somewhere around three to four hours after the consumption of the food.

Speaker 3 According to Chargel's star witness, Dr.

Speaker 3 Werner Spitz, a world-renowned scientist, there was still enough undigested food in Ammon's stomach to prove he could not have lived more than four hours after eating.

Speaker 3 Dr. Spitz insists Ted Ammon was dead by 1 a.m.
and Chargel proves Danny was miles away from East Hampton during that time.

Speaker 3 His cell phone records show he was driving from Manhattan to his sister's house.

Speaker 3 Of course, the prosecution's medical experts say Ammon could have been alive much later, giving Pelosi time

Speaker 3 to get to him. When do you think Ted Ammon was killed?

Speaker 7 I think that probably the closest estimate I could give would be around 3 o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 3 But as the trial wears on, all eyes turn to the one expert who really knows if Danny could have killed Ted Ammon, Danny Pelosi himself.

Speaker 3 He's feeling the pressure, as he told me in a phone call from jail. I'm afraid to look at the jury.
I'm afraid. I'm afraid to do anything.
Why? Because I'm too emotional, everyone says.

Speaker 3 I'm too emotional.

Speaker 3 And everybody also says he talks too much.

Speaker 5 There's no sense of relief. Let's go to trial.
I've had nothing to hide. We all know I didn't do nothing here.

Speaker 3 But now he says he'll be quiet for once and he won't take the stand in his own defense.

Speaker 3 I'm going to follow the advice of my attorney because it looks like I don't even have to testify at this point.

Speaker 3 But can Danny Pelosi really keep his mouth shut? What do you think?

Speaker 21 All of a sudden,

Speaker 21 at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, there he was sitting on the stand, talking to us.

Speaker 7 A late and surprising development in the Daniel Pelosi murder trial.

Speaker 3 WCBA. Today was the day Jerry Chargell hoped to hand his case over to the juror.
Thanks, Anthony.

Speaker 3 But there's a surprise witness, one Chargell never wanted to call. Danny Pelosi, who decided against Chargel's advice to take the stand.

Speaker 3 Is there something that you do as an experienced lawyer on mornings like this before your guy is about to face the wolves? Yes, try not to throw up.

Speaker 15 My mouth dropped to the floor. I couldn't believe he took the stand.

Speaker 7 I think I turned around. I said, you're kidding.

Speaker 3 Pelosi told us by phone from jail he knew what was at stake from the moment he took the oath. When I got on the stand, the first thing I had to do was get my heart back in my jacket.

Speaker 7 I was really hoping to keep him on the stand long enough that he would start to lose what little control that he had.

Speaker 3 You were trying to get under his skin.

Speaker 7 Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 21 Absolutely. She got under my skin a few times, and I know I came back a little arrogant a few times, but the woman was attacking me.

Speaker 3 Did your opinion of him change when he was on the stand?

Speaker 15 I don't think it did. He didn't say anything to hurt himself.
He was very controlled. I saw him grit his teeth several times.

Speaker 3 While he was on the stand, Danny dropped a bombshell. It's a story he's been telling us off the record for about a year, but he's never said it under oath before.

Speaker 3 He says Gennarosa asked him to kill Ted Ammon for her, but he refused. And if you believe Danny, Gennarosa's alibi that she was in her Manhattan apartment the night of the murder was a lie.

Speaker 3 In fact, according to Danny, Gennarosa left that apartment before he did. This woman told me 100 times times she was going to go kill her husband.
100 times. Maybe this time it happened.

Speaker 3 But 100 times she left to kill her husband. While he was on the stand, Danny only suggested Gennarosa was involved.
But later, in a phone conversation, he went further, much further.

Speaker 3 I kept my mouth shut because my wife, Gennarosa, married me to keep my mouth shut. That was the whole reason.
to keep my mouth shut. But once again, Danny could not keep his mouth shut.

Speaker 3 He said the evidence shows Gennarosa did it, but not alone. It totally heads up.
Look at how many times the man had to get hit. If I hit you four times, you're dead.
What does that say?

Speaker 3 That tells me that there's a person with not enough power hitting somebody with a weapon, with a weapon that was hard enough to hurt them, but not hard enough to stop them. Somebody like Gennarosa.

Speaker 3 Thank you. And not alone.
How many other people?

Speaker 3 Two. And I am not going any further.
Were you?

Speaker 3 I'm not going to open it. No, get the hell out of here.
I had nothing to do with it.

Speaker 18 Generosa was a person filled with rage and hatred.

Speaker 3 In his closing arguments, Jerry Chargail repeated one question.

Speaker 3 Where was Gennarosa Ammon that night?

Speaker 18 I think she was right there.

Speaker 3 Surely you don't think she killed Ted Ammon.

Speaker 18 I don't think she was there alone, but she wasn't there with Danny Pelosi.

Speaker 7 This is Danny Pelosi's trial, so this jury doesn't have to decide beyond a reasonable doubt whether Gennarosa was physically there or not there.

Speaker 3 The fate of accused killer Danny Pelosi hanging in the balance.

Speaker 9 Tomorrow morning, a jury...

Speaker 7 They've been listening to the evidence a long time.

Speaker 3 After more than two months of testimony, the jurors got the case late on a Friday night. All through the weekend, both sides camped out and waited.

Speaker 18 This is a jury that's essentially sifting the clues, and I'm very happy that they're doing this with the care and deliberation that seems to be occurring.

Speaker 3 Inside the jury room, the jurors were troubled by the lack of any physical evidence.

Speaker 23 There was no eyewitness there. There was no murder weapon recovered that had his fingerprints on it.

Speaker 3 And that was reason for Danny to be optimistic. If they do their job properly and they weigh the evidence, I'm going to be sitting home for Christmas with my son that I still haven't seen.

Speaker 3 But late on a Monday afternoon, after three long days of deliberating, the jury reached a verdict. Danny Pelosi was convicted of second-degree murder.

Speaker 3 When he heard the verdict, the man who could never shut up was speechless and began softly crying. When that jury came back and said guilty, I was in shock.

Speaker 3 In the end, the jurors could not ignore that missing hard drive that could have recorded images from the murder.

Speaker 21 The person who

Speaker 21 committed the crime is the one that took the hard drive out and disposed of it.

Speaker 3 And who was that person?

Speaker 21 Oh, that was definitely Danny Pelosi.

Speaker 3 Why do you say definitely?

Speaker 7 I should really say it was definitely by request of or

Speaker 21 Danny Pelosi.

Speaker 22 You had to know where it was.

Speaker 3 You had to know where it was.

Speaker 3 And there was the matter of the millions, Ted Ammo's fortune. Jurors believe Danny was worried he might lose access to the money if Generosa signed a proposed divorce settlement as scheduled.

Speaker 15 And it was that weekend that Ted had had to die because Monday the agreement was supposed to be signed.

Speaker 23 This was a case where it really came down to, you know, all the witnesses and all the evidence and when you pieced it all together there was there was no other individual that fit.

Speaker 3 He fit. He fit, but some jurors still believe there's room for more suspects.
It wasn't by himself.

Speaker 21 There were voids in the patterns of blood spatters. There had to be people standing on one side.

Speaker 3 In fact, even after the verdict, some jurors still aren't sure what role Pelosi played.

Speaker 20 Nobody could put him there.

Speaker 3 So how did you satisfy yourself then, eventually, that he was there?

Speaker 20 I kind of thought somebody else maybe helped him. Maybe he didn't go there himself.
Maybe he had some friends. There were all kinds of things go through your mind.

Speaker 3 But do you believe now, today, as we sit here, that Danny Pelosi killed Ted Ammon?

Speaker 20 If not directly, he had it through someone else.

Speaker 3 Do you think he was there?

Speaker 20 I'm not sure of that.

Speaker 3 Still, to this day.

Speaker 20 Yes.

Speaker 3 But in the end, the jury voted that whatever his exact role was that night, Danny intended to kill Ted Ammon and took part in the murder. Pelosi was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

Speaker 3 I'm not doing it for 25 years. Listen to me loud and clear.
I am appealing this issue, and on the appellate circuit, it will be heard. I guarantee that.

Speaker 3 But at least for now, the man who went from the world of blue collars to the world of blue bloods will have to get used to the world behind bars.

Speaker 3 Daniel Pelosi's appeal for a new trial was denied.

Speaker 24 Give the gift that everyone wants, Omaha Steaks. Right now, save 50% site-wide, plus get an extra $35 off with code HOLIDAY GIFT to checkout.

Speaker 24 Save on USDA-certified tender bacon-wrapped filet mignons, perfectly aged ribeyes, gourmet sides, and decadent desserts. Delivered right to their door.
Skip the stress. Order now at Omahasteaks.com.

Speaker 24 That's Omahasteaks.com and use code HOLIDAYGIT at checkout to get an extra $35 off. Hurry, these deals won't last.
Minimum purchase may apply. See site for details.