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A Republican candidate for state attorney general is under fire for aiding a brutal killer.
Lawyer John Sarcone represented Robert Sepe, who beat his girlfriend Janette Carlucci to death with a baseball bat at their Croton-on-Hudson home in 2008. Sepe was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison in 2009.
But Sarcone filed an appeal on Sepe’s behalf — and won.
He persuaded an appeals court in 2013 to reduce Sepe’s sentence from first degree murder to a lesser manslaughter count of five to 25 years in prison. The judges were split 3 to 2.
Sepe is eligible for parole in 2025 and could be released for good behavior that year.
He will be released no later than 2028 based on the reduced sentence, according to state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision records.
After the appellate court ruled in his favor, Sarcone told lohud.com that that his killer-client was not “some member of a street gang, or a murder-for-hire guy, or a mass murderer or a serial killer. … Unfortunately, he snapped, for which he is paying. It’s a sad, tragic case. Obviously there’s a lot of empathy here. We felt that justice was served.”
But Jennifer Harrison, founder of Victims Right NY, said Sarcone’s representation of the baseball bat killer makes him unfit to be the attorney general.
“Sarcone tried to justify this horrific murder. It’s OK to beat a woman to death with a baseball bat?! This is eye opening. It’s a big red flag,” Harrison said.
She said Republicans can’t accuse Democratic incumbent AG Letitia James of being soft on crime if their nominee for the office coddled a killer.
Sarcone, through a campaign representative, defended his representation of Sepe.
“John Sarcone has a broad-based legal practice with a focus on appeals. A family friend asked him to appeal this case on behalf of the defendant’s family and, after hearing the facts, three New York State Appellate Division Judges ruled that due to the defendant’s long-term mental health issues Manslaughter was a more appropriate decision,” said Sarcone campaign spokesman Rob Ryan.
Then Westchester County District Attorney Janet DiFiore — now the state’s chief judge — opposed the reduced sentence.
In its ruling, the appeals court said Sepe was emotionally distraught because of personal and business-related woes. He ran a failing Bronx health products distribution company.
“The evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that the defendant, who was in a fragile mental state, was actually influenced by an extreme emotional disturbance when he attacked Carlucci, with whom he had previously shared a loving relationship,” Judge Jeffrey Cohen wrote for the majority.
“We are convinced that the jury was not justified in concluding that the defendant was not under the influence of an extreme emotional disturbance, for which there was a reasonable explanation, when he attacked and killed Jeanette Carlucci.”
The opinion noted that Sepe had “a history of depression and a long history of anxiety and panic disorder that would manifest itself in panic attacks.”
Sarcone faces off against lawyer Michael Henry in the Republican primary for attorney general.
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