The Advocate
Richard Blassberg

With All Due Respect, The Balancios Must Face The Compelling Truth, And Demand Accountability From Pirro and Company For Their Lies

Unfortunately the reign of a sick, self-promoting prosecutor such as Jeanine Pirro leaves in its wake many victims who must spend the
rest of their lives coping with the damage done by one so evil, and unbridled. Those innocent of the crimes for which they were maliciously,
and unlawfully prosecuted, and convicted, are left to struggle for years, all the while imprisoned, through appellate courts, often no
more anxious to expose the truth than the venal conspirators who robbed them of their liberty. And, those who are family and friends
of victims who lost their lives may never be able to accept the truth, as the result of the manipulation and lies which were worked into their
tortured lives in the calculated effort to obtain a conviction by any means, at any cost. Such are the human casualties, the Anthony Di-
Simones, and family, and the Dorothy and Jeffrey Balancios.

There can be little doubt that the prosecution of Anthony DiSimone for the murder of Louis Balancio by DA Jeanine Pirro, and ADAs
Clement Patti, and Steven Bender, represents one of the more outrageous and contemptible schemes ever worked against an innocent defendant by prosecutors fully aware of his innocence. The simple truth is that the Westchester District Attorney, and her henchmen assistants, were fully aware of who had murdered Louis Balancio, just six days after the killing. They had a confession, and witness testimony, but unlawfully chose to permit the killer to escape, electing instead to pursue someone with a surname and possible connections
more compatible with the DA’s personal agenda.

Simply put, an Albanian named Nick Djonovic would not help to convince Mrs. Pirro’s critics that she surely could, and would, prosecute
Organized Crime, the Cosa Nostra, the way a defendant with an Italian-American name would. As always, it was all about herself. Never mind the fact that friends of the murder victim came forward to say, “he was stabbed by an Albanian, as another Albanian held him.” Never mind, that if it was an ethnic street brawl it wouldn’t make an awful lot of sense that an Italian-American stabbed another Italian-American thirteen times. Jeanine Pirro would hide the truth and confabulate her own story, poisoning the jury pool over several years, and imprisoning witnesses who would contradict her theory.

She would commit every form of prosecutorial misconduct known, working her scheme not only against whomever she ultimately decided
best suited the profile she needed, but as importantly, against the family and friends of the decedent, young Louis Balancio, not exactly an altar-boy, out bar-hopping and hanging with a rough bunch, but certainly someone who should not have lost his life. For six torturous years she would keep concealed 52 boxes, and 376 pages of evidence that inculpated Djonovic, the actual killer, as she first indicted Darren Mazzarella who, together with his brother Nick, was already implicated, and in custody for the killing of at least two other persons.

She would eventually decide that a better target would be Anthony DiSimone because his father was reputedly a “made member” of an Organized Crime family. All the while Anthony was in plain sight living in Yonkers with his wife and her family. Despite Pirro’s lie that he had fled the country for Sicily, he was right there, all along. And, oh yes, it would take her four grand juries before she finally empanelled one that was willing to indict Mr. DiSimone! Through it all, the Balancios had to be wary wondering what to believe. But, no problem, Mrs. Pirro had some tricks up her sleeve. She had 376 pages, and 52 boxes of evidence that she knew would convince the jury that Anthony DiSimone was not the murderer, tucked away, hidden.

At trial she would repeatedly come into the courtroom, and would continue to try to influence public opinion and the jury with repeated,
public, physical contact with Mrs. Balancio, photo-op after photo-op. She had no concerns about the judge, James Cowhey. After all, he had
dated her mother, Esther Ferris. How difficult would it be to conceal Brady material from the Defense with momma’s boyfriend presiding?

Now, thirteen years after the death of their son, and seven years after an unconstitutional trial that convicted Anthony DiSimone, how can the Balancios accept the truth? How can they open their eyes and admit to themselves that they were even more duped than the jury, which refused to convict Defendant DiSimone of Intentional Murder, despite thirteen stab wounds? How can Mrs. Dorothy Balancio, who now prefers to publicly castigate and trash one of the finest Federal District Court Judges sitting in the State of New York today, Charles L. Brieant, ever acknowledge the lies, and the evil office that withheld a mountain of evidence, including a confession by the actual murderer of her son?

Instead, she and her husband would rather go on denying the compelling evidence, of Anthony DiSimone’s “actual innocence,” going so
far as to make up stories that there was conclusive DNA evidence, as Mrs. Balancio put it, “proving that Anthony DiSimone stabbed my
son, Louis, multiple times in the back.” There was no such evidence.

Th e Balancio’s minds are made up, and they will not be confused by facts! They prefer, in their state of unreachable denial, to attack a dedicated, humble, lifelong public servant, Judge Brieant, whose unenviable task it has been to bring forth Justice, while untangling and setting
down the evil, and unlawful confabulation that DA Jeanine Pirro egregiously perpetrated. Incredibly, DA Janet DiFiore has continued to defend that action by repeatedly issuing, even in the United States Second Circuit Court of Appeals, the outrageous, bald-faced lie that there
was, “no link in the chain of evidence between Nick Djonovic and the Balancio homicide.”

It is tragic, indeed, that Jeanine Ferris Pirro was ever entrusted with the power and the responsibility to act on behalf of the People of Westchester, no less for twelve long, and destructive years. The DiSimone case, as incredibly shocking as the prosecutorial misconduct may have been, is not unlike countless other prosecutions over the course of her reign that sent perhaps hundreds of innocent persons to prison.

However, the DiSimone case is so outrageous in scope and evilness, so offensive to the sensibilities of high tribunals, including the United States Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and ordinary citizens alike, that it will be the battering ram that nally blows open the door to the
evil inner sanctum that was the Westchester District Attorney’s Office under Jeanine Pirro.

There can be no turning back now. Federal and State appellate courts can no longer turn away from the monstrous truth that Jeanine
Pirro, and any number of her willing protégés, many of whom still inhabit the office, routinely violated the civil rights of defendants and
victims alike. We are not talking about mere technicalities, either. Quite the contrary, 52 boxes of materials, and 376 pages, a mountain
of Brady material, kept from an innocent man for 13 years, really says it all.

What must be kept in mind is that although extreme, even for Pirro’s Office, the modus operandi in the DiSimone prosecution was no
di erent than in hundreds of cases over the years, Richard DiGuglielmo, Jing Kelly, Steven Nowicki, Matthew McKerrick, and yes, Jeffrey
Deskovic, all victims of mindless self-promotional prosecutorial misconduct. I suppose Mrs. Pirro opened the lid to her evil thought processes when in her failed book, referring to all defendants, she declared, “Cage the bastards.” Just who the real bastards are is becoming
more and more apparent every day.