Retrial in Baldwin double murder case kicks off

A Freeport man wore headphones to amplify court proceedings as his retrial in a 1998 double slaying kicked off Monday after an appellate ruling that he couldn’t hear at a trial two decades ago in which a jury found him guilty.

In 2000, a Nassau judge sentenced John Pierotti to life in prison without parole after a Nassau jury convicted him of first-degree murder and weapon charges in the shooting deaths of carpenters Gerard Kennedy Jr., 36, and Willis Frost, 41, outside a Baldwin tavern.

But a federal judge later found Pierotti, now 65, had a severe hearing impairment and was “essentially rendered absent for significant portions of his trial,” making his first trial “fundamentally unfair.”

The 2018 ruling, which came after years of appeals from Pierotti,  ordered prison officials to release him unless prosecutors took steps “to retry him." 

On Monday, acting State Supreme Court Justice Helene Gugerty asked jurors — who are unaware of the first verdict — if they could hear as she started to explain the law before opening statements. 

“I just want to make sure that everybody can hear OK,” the judge said, offering "listening devices" to anyone who needed them.

Later, Pierotti interrupted prosecutor Martin Meaney’s opening statement, declaring: “I can’t hear.”

Meaney spoke more loudly into a microphone, asking: “Mr. Pierotti, can you hear me now?” The judge then told Pierotti to let his appointed attorney, Dana Grossblatt, speak for him.

Meaney said Pierotti shot the victims outside the Dragger Inn — now Lisa’s Lounge — in the cold early morning of Dec. 23, 1998.

“This defendant took a gun and shoved it in Willis Frost’s belly and pulled the trigger. And then he ran down Jerry  Kennedy and put a bullet in his eye,” Meaney said.

The victims had been drinking in the Milburn Avenue bar before they went outside at about 1 a.m. to use drugs, he said.

The bartender heard what turned out to be gunshots before Pierotti came inside, acting nervously, according to Meaney. He said Pierotti then left and came back, saying it looked like two guys had been shot dead.

Meaney said a Baldwin volunteer firefighter who lived nearby found Frost lifeless near the driver's door of a van before bar patrons pointed out Kennedy, lying dead near the tavern's front door.

Another firefighter saw Pierotti unsuccessfully trying to start his van, and Pierotti told him police were "going to arrest me" before the firefighter convinced Pierotti to go inside the bar on the freezing night, Meaney said. The prosecutor said Pierotti left on a bicycle after police arrived.

Pierotti later told detectives he took the gun from one of the victims and shot them when “they came at me” after he approached Frost’s van for a second time and asked again for help starting his own van, Meaney said.

Months later, Pierotti’s girlfriend — with whom he has children — gave police bullets that matched bullets from the shooting and said Pierotti came home that morning and said, "I just shot two guys," Meaney told jurors. The gun Pierotti used had belonged to his girlfriend's late father, the prosecutor said.

But Grossblatt said the girlfriend was “a pathological liar” who changed her story after initially telling Newsday that Pierotti was innocent and telling police he never had a gun.

She portrayed Frost as “reckless” as he sought another high while smoking marijuana with Kennedy after drinking and using cocaine, saying he got angry when Pierotti approached again to ask for a battery jump.

Grossblatt said that’s when Frost took out a gun and a struggle ensued before “the last man standing" was Pierotti.

“There will be no doubt in your mind that this was a case of self-defense on the part of John Pierotti," she said.

Kennedy's cousin, Donna Kennedy, 50, said later that Pierotti "should not get out, no matter what," calling his hearing problem claims "a bunch of crap."

The Long Beach woman added of the trial: "It's rehashing everything from the past. It's not fair. It's not right."