Posted on 11/10/2006 7:40:00 AM PST by Conservomax
The construction worker accused of killing indie actress .Adrienne Shelly tied a sheet around her neck, dragged the unconscious woman to a bathroom - and strung her up while she was still breathing, sources said yesterday.
Then 19-year-old illegal immigrant Diego Pillco fled the West Village building and calmly went to work at another job site - leaving her to die in what originally appeared to be a suicide, the sources said.
"This woman did not die from a strike to her head," Assistant District Attorney Marit DeLozier said as Pillco was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court.
Pillco "fought with the victim, tied a sheet around her neck and dragged her to the bathroom and hanged her from the curtain rod," DeLozier said.
Calling the case against the suspect "strong," DeLozier said the medical examiner "made it clear, crystal clear, that this victim died from compression to her neck."
"The defendant killed the victim and made it look like a suicide, which is especially egregious," she said.
Pillco told cops he was renovating an apartment directly below the flat Shelly used as an office last Wednesday when she came down to complain about the noise and they got into a screaming match.
The Ecuadoran immigrant confessed he threw a hammer at the 40-year-old married mom and - fearing that he might be deported - followed her upstairs when she threatened to call police, he told cops.
When they reached her door, Pillco said Shelly slapped him and he knocked her out with a punch. Then, unable to detect a heartbeat, Pillco said he dragged her to the bathroom to stage a suicide, sources said.
But in doing so, Pillco stood on the toilet and left behind a sneaker print that cops used to tie him to the cold-blooded crime, sources said.
Pillco said nothing at the hearing and did not enter a plea.
His Legal Aid lawyer, Thomas Klein, asked that the slightly built suspect be placed in protective custody and on suicide watch - standard procedure for high profile prisoners.
Meanwhile, Shelly's heartbroken husband, Andrew Ostroy, who had insisted that his wife would never kill herself, was left to mourn the actress, best known for roles in indie hits like "Trust," "Teresa's Tattoo" and last year's "Factotum."
"He's still in shock," a family friend said. "I don't know if he'll ever get over this."
The 47-year-old marketing executive who runs a liberal blog was holed up in his Tribeca loft with the couple's 2-year-old daughter, Sophie. In Jericho, L.I., where Shelly grew up, her mother, Elaine Langbaum, sat shiva.
Pillco worked for a Brooklyn-based construction firm called the BCG, which issued a statement saying the suspect worked only part time "because of his immigrant status."
Pillco lived with his brother, Wilson, in the basement of a building on the outskirts of Park Slope owned by his employer. And residents said he worked every day of the week except Saturday - and then toiled as the building's unofficial super.
Neighbor Delmi Restituyo, 32, said Pillco told her he paid $12,000 to get smuggled into the U.S. in July. "He worked so hard to support his family and pay off his debt," said Restituyo, 32.
At the Abingdon Square building where Shelly was murdered, some residents remembered Pillco differently. "I was walking down the stairs and I felt his stare," said Sara Moore, 72. "Only a woman would know."
Slightly build? I doubt it. Short, yes. But probably stocky. Just go to Home Depot. There are no 'slightly built' illegals there. Chubby ones, yes.
Twinkie,
I'm so sorry for your family's TOTALLY NEEDLESS loss.
My God -- will it take clubs and pitchforks and rails and boiling tar and feathers (or worse) to get our alleged "leaders" to stop the madness?
Probably.
I realize that not all these folks are criminals; they're probably not much worse than a cross section of humanity. It just seems like we're getting more than our fair share of lawbreakers amongst the decent ones. I'm not advocating being hateful to anyone; but they need to go back and go about it legally. I can't believe it would cost more than $12,000 to do it legally. - I also think Christians need to reach out to the Mexican folks, not all of them are illegal and we don't know who is and who isn't. I saw a Mexican girl in Lowe's the other night and managed a slight smile; she seemed to almost melt, prepared for a cold stare. My son was saying that Islam is recruiting these folks faster than Christians are. If Al Quaida attacks over here, I'd rather have the Mexican immigrants fighting for US.
I don't know your heritage but ALL of my European ancestors stood in line at Ellis Island to get in here LEGALLY. What part of ILLEGAL don't these folks(and our freaking politicians)-- good or otherwise -- understand?
And that stat about the islamic nutsos recruiting hispanics just makes the case that if we are going to have a problem with some unknown number of the hispanics ALREADY HERE, what in God's name are we doing flooding the country with ILLEGALS who fly under the radar and could be FAR more dangerous than those we know about.
The other problem is that the load on the ERs around the US is causing many hospitals to close their doors. Wonder how many native born citizens have died and will die because THEY can't be treated in time or at all?
My niece is an OB/GYN who took her pre-med at HAAAAVVAAAAADDD! Needless to say, she emerged from that experience a FLAMING, BLEEDING HEART LIBERAL.
Upon completing her medical training at yet another liberal university, she interned at a hospital near the border in San Diego.
It was there that a mystical transformation took place: She began to connect the heavy deductions from the GROSS EARNINGS for which she busted her butt for as many as 72 virtually sleepless hours in a row with the taxis and jalopies regularly sliding to the curb in front of the ER.
Many of them contained pregnant illegals who won the race to deliver their babies HERE. She caught many of those babies who, under the current -- and ERRONEOUS -- interpretation of the 14th Amendment were IMMEDIATELY NEW AMERICANS. The mother – who, obviously, could not care for the child if she were back in her native land -- could not be deported now even if the INS and the political bosses WANTED her deported . And as the mother of a new US citizen, the woman could remain here for about as long as she cared to – and that was usually for life.
Most of those patients were welfare recipients and the deliveries were charity cases: The bill for the hospital’s – and HER services – were routinely spread over the bills of those who DO pay. And what the other users of those facilities don't cover went back to the taxpayers.
And since my niece was now a taxpayer, they were costing HER.
And while she may not exactly be a libertarian, she’s is today a LOOONNNNG way from Haaaavaaaaaad.
And just so the bleeders who might see this don’t think me some sort of ethnocentric bigot, I submit this problem is MORE than just about illegals.
Before my oldest daughter (Kim) was born at University Hospital in Cleveland in 1967, I sat in the main lobby as welfare mother-to-be after welfare mother-to-be shuffled through the door to the maternity ER for THEIR free deliveries.
Before WE could take OUR daughter home, I had to cough up over 3 grand. And that was a great deal of dough in 1967, especially for a guy just out of the USAF.
As I wrote the check, I remembered the magazine article I’d recently read by a hospital administrator from Massachusetts who admitted that all US hospitals practiced a form of medical Marxism, spreading the costs of care for indigents over the bills of those who DO pay for care. Given the move to socialism here, it probably will never be otherwise: Not counting Byzantine complexity and confusion, government produces – and has -- NOTHING unless it first takes it from some PERSON. SOMEBODY ALWAYS PAYS.
Look, I have a big enough problem paying for the 3rd and 4th generation slackers and welfare bums who were BORN here.
It’s time we stopped paying for those who were not.
The SOB feared deportation so he murders her.
Cripes.
The practiced way the scumbag went after this innocent woman, took her life with a macabre brutality, then strung her up to make it look like a suicide, makes you wonder how many times he's done this.
These are not acts ordinary people would know how to commit.
It is chilling to think illegals are crawling around the US looking for victims. Ever notice the smirk on their faces when they are caught crossing the border? Chilling.
No wonder Mexico and other Central and South American governments are hustling these people into the US----they're ridding themselves of their lowlifes.
I thought he was a "guest worker"?
Truly, "Our Diversity is Our Strength!"
Some Immigrants Are Offering Social Security Numbers for Rent
New York Times 6/7/2005 | EDUARDO PORTER
Gerardo Luviano is looking for somebody to rent his Social Security number. Mr. Luviano, 39, obtained legal residence in the United States almost 20 years ago. But these days, back in Mexico, teaching beekeeping at the local high school in this hot, dusty town in the southwestern part of the country, Mr. Luviano is not using his Social Security number. So he is looking for an illegal immigrant in the United States to use it for him - providing a little cash along the way. "I've almost managed to contact somebody to lend my number to," Mr. Luviano said. "My brother in California has a friend who has crops and has people that need one."
Mr. Luviano's pending transaction is merely a blip in a shadowy yet vibrant underground market. Virtually undetected by American authorities, operating below the radar in immigrant communities from coast to coast, a secondary trade in identities has emerged straddling both sides of the Mexico-United States border. The number of people participating in the illegal deals is impossible to determine accurately. But it is clearly significant, flourishing despite efforts to combat identity fraud.
"There are people who live in Mexico who take $4,000 or $5,000 in unemployment in the off season," said Jorge Eguiluz, a labor contractor working in the fields around Stockton, Calif. "They just lend the number during the season." The deals also generate cash in other ways.
Most identity lending happens within an extended family, or among immigrants from the same hometown. But it is still a hard-nosed transaction. Illegal immigrant workers usually earn so little they are owed an income tax refund at the end of the year. The illegal immigrant "working the number" will usually pay the real owner by sharing the tax refund.
Since legal American residents can lose their green cards if they stay outside the country too long, for those who have returned to Mexico it is useful to have somebody working under their identity north of the border. "There are people who live in Mexico who take $4,000 or $5,000 in unemployment in the off season," said Jorge Eguiluz, a labor contractor working in the fields around Stockton, Calif. "They just lend the number during the season."
The deals also generate cash in other ways. Most identity lending happens within an extended family, or among immigrants from the same hometown. But it is still a hard-nosed transaction. Illegal immigrant workers usually earn so little they are owed an income tax refund at the end of the year. The illegal immigrant "working the number" will usually pay the real owner by sharing the tax refund. "Sometimes the one who is working doesn't mind giving all the refund, he just wants to work," said Fernando Rosales, who runs a shop preparing income taxes in the immigrant-rich enclave of Huntington Park, Calif. "But others don't, and sometimes they fight over it. We see that all the time. It's the talk of the place during income tax time."
The income tax "refund" is almost certainly generated by Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) fraud, which as a "legal resident" the number renter would qualify to receive, especially if they have have or claim children. The EITC is a "refundable tax credit, which means the IRS will pay it out even if no taxes have been withheld or paid in. So the IRS gives filers who claim the EITC "refunds," even if they have had no taxes withheld. These number renters can claim up to $4,400 for the 2005 tax year in EITC "refunds," most of the number renters probably claim this maximum refund.
The Additional Child Tax Credit is another "refundable" credit which is no doubt routinely claimed by these renters.For 2005, if the number renter claimed $14,400 in wage income, and three children, between the EITC and the Additional Child Tax Credit the renter would, without having any taxes withheld from wages, receive a tax "refund" of $4,898, plus have $892 credited to Social Security; in addition to the potential of thousands of dollars in California unemployment compensation.
All I get is criticism and an occasional opportunity to move. Due to the fact that my information is quite often not heeded, I then tend to have the thought that perhaps Americans deserve what keeps happening to them. It's hard to think any other way.
All I knew was the initial news reports described this as suicide.
Thank God there were cops diligent enough to notice the sneaker prints. It would have been so easy for them to file this under suicide and continue on their way.
The husband always said from day one that he knew his wife would never do this and abandon their child.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/11082006/news/regionalnews/actress_set_off_illegals_killer_rage_by_calling_him_s_o_b__regionalnews_larry_celona__murray_weiss_and_dan_mangan.htm?page=1
ACTRESS SET OFF ILLEGAL'S 'KILLER' RAGE BY CALLING HIM 'S.O.B.'
By LARRY CELONA, MURRAY WEISS and DAN MANGAN
November 8, 2006 -- A 19-year-old construction worker flipped out, hitting and strangling indie actress Adrienne Shelly with a bed sheet because she dared to call him a "son of a bitch," police sources said yesterday.
Ecuadorian illegal immigrant Diego Pillco told cops he took that insult literally and became enraged during a confrontation with the pint-sized actress last week over noise he was making in the apartment below her Greenwich Village office, sources said.
Police also revealed that Shelly, 40, desperately tried to fight off the baby-faced worker during the attack, leaving scratch marks on his face.
"She didn't go easily," said a law-enforcement source.
Those and other details about Shelly's killing emerged as Pillco was ordered held without bail on a charge of second-degree murder. On Monday, he allegedly confessed to the shocking crime and admitted staging it to look like she had hanged herself in her bathroom.
Pillco himself was placed on suicide watch at his lawyer's request during an arraignment in Manhattan Supreme Court, where Assistant District Attorney Marit DeLozier said an autopsy determined that Shelly died "from compression to the neck."
Shelly's family and friends sat shiva yesterday in her TriBeCa apartment, where one distraught pal said, "You can't believe someone would rip her away."
A native of the city of Cuenca, Pillco arrived in the United States in the summer of 2005 after paying smugglers $12,000 to sneak him over the Mexican border, law-enforcement sources said.
Pillco eventually made his way to Brooklyn, where he moved into a basement apartment with his brother Wilson - who had arrived months earlier - at 328 Prospect Ave., where a cousin also lived.
His landlord, Louis Hernandez, hired Pillco to work as a part-time helper for his construction company, even though - by his own admission - he knew the immigrant did not have legal working papers.
Still, Pillco "demonstrated a respectful, well-mannered, decent and responsible behavior toward our client, co-workers and within our business," Hernandez said in a prepared statement. "He just seemed to be another hardworking immigrant."
Pillco's cousin told The Post that the accused killer was "quiet and peaceful. He didn't have a temper," and was working to pay off his smuggling debt, and to support his parents and five siblings back in Ecuador.
Recently, Hernandez was hired to renovate apartment 37 at 15 Abingdon Square in Greenwich Village, a rental unit that had become vacant after its tenant's death.
On Nov. 1, Pillco and two other workers were doing spackling and other work there.
The unit is directly under unit 47, which Shelly both sublet and used as an office for her film-production work when that tenant was away.
Shelly was in apartment 47 that morning after her marketing-executive husband, Andrew Ostroy, dropped her off. Just before 9:30 a.m., Shelly became annoyed by noise from the work in the apartment below, and walked downstairs to complain, sources said.
Although there were two other workers there, Shelly saw only Pillco, who was standing on a ladder.
The actress told Pillco - who speaks little English - to be quiet by putting a finger to her mouth and saying, "Shhhh," a source said.
Pillco yelled at her in Spanish to get out, descended from the ladder, picked up a hammer and pounded the floor with it before again ordering her to leave.
Pillco, who is at most an inch taller than the 5-foot-2 Shelly, then shoved her out of the apartment and closed the door. But Shelly reopened the door and slapped his face before heading back upstairs, sources said.
Pillco followed Shelly upstairs into her apartment, where she yelled at him to leave, and called him a "son of a bitch."
He responded by punching Shelly, knocking her to the ground, sources said. Law-enforcement sources said he may have hit her several times, and that she became unconscious.
Pillco told police he put his head to Shelly's chest, and could not hear her breathing.
Fearing he had killed her, and that he would be deported, he wrapped a bed sheet around her neck and dragged her body into the bathroom, where he attached one end of the sheet to a shower-curtain rod, sources said.
It is not clear whether Shelly died from the sheet being wrapped around her neck, from being dragged with it or from being hanged. An autopsy ruled she did not die from a blow to her head.
Pillco left Shelley's apartment, but did not return to work in the apartment below for several hours. When he did, he was sporting a cut on his face, which he told co-workers occurred when he got into a fight with some movers.
Shelly's husband, Ostroy, discovered her dead later that afternoon.
Police initially were inclined to believe that she had killed herself, but were concerned about several mysterious Reebok sneaker prints they found on the toilet seat in Shelly's bathroom.
On Sunday, when detectives returned to the apartment to collect Shelly's computer and wallet, they stopped by apartment 37, whose door was open. On the floor, on sheets of dusty construction paper, they saw a sneaker print that matched the ones in police photos from Shelly's bathroom.
Cops soon tracked down Hernandez's workers, who told them Pillco had been wearing sneakers.
Pillco was picked up by detectives at his home early Monday morning, and brought to the 6th Precinct station house in Manhattan for questioning.
At first, he denied any knowledge of Shelly's death.
"He was acting like nothing happened," one source said. "He was like ice."
But after about a half-hour of interrogation, Pillco began confessing to the murder in a matter-of-fact manner, the source said.
His admission and the fact that police matched his Allen Iverson-model Reeboks to the prints found in Shelly's bathroom, led to his arrest Monday.
Let's hope some prosecutor with a backbone gets that job done. Deported to the afterlife.
He's only been charged with 2nd degree. He'll live and we'll support him complete with tax paid medical and interpreters for LIFE. Oh, and free lawyers.
Second degree?....I'm watching in amazement as well.
I guess the excuse by the prosecutor for only charging 2nd degree will be that this poor little immigrant was "intimidated"
Diego Pillco, 19, of Sunset Park, a handyman who was working in the apartment being renovated, was charged with second-degree murder in the popular indie-film actress's death on Thursday, police said.
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