David Boglioli at his court arraignment in August 2008. File photo
State’s attorney David Gartenstein said a number of jurors were excused because of their views on gun control, or because they were acquainted with one of the 180 people on the list of potential witnesses.
Boglioli, 60, of Wilmington, stands accused of shooting George Riccitelli, 52, outside his Greenwich Road apartment last August. Boglioli pleaded not guilty to the charge of second degree murder at his arraignment last year. Defense attorney Matt Harnett will argue that Boglioli acted in self-defense.
On Wednesday afternoon, Harnett and Gartenstein offered a preview of the trial during pretrial motions. The state asked the court to exclude evidence and the testimony of a number of defense witnesses that they argued weren’t relevant to the case and could confuse jurors. Harnett argued that witness testimony would establish Boglioli’s state of mind on the day he shot Riccitelli.
Harnett said that police had long suspected Riccitelli and his landlord and upstairs neighbor, Ken Willis, of involvement in illegal drugs, and that police removed hundreds of marijuana plants from Riccitelli’s apartment and Willis’ house after the shooting. Harnett said that, in his deposition, Willis referred to Riccitelli as “his right-hand man” who “made sure nobody gave Ken any trouble.” The results of toxicology testing on Riccitelli’s body, Harnett said, indicated that he was under the influence of marijuana at the time of his death, and had used cocaine within the previous 24 hours.
Judge Karen Carroll asked Harnett what the jury would make of the toxicology results. “It would show that he was under the influence at the time,” Harnett said. “Witnesses will testify that marijuana can make people paranoid, and that it impairs judgement. There’s no evidence David Boglioli was impaired in any way.”
Boglioli also lived on Greenwich Road in a small house owned by Willis. Harnett said Boglioli had been identified as a threat to the ongoing drug enterprise, and Riccitelli and Willis were pressuring him to move out of the house. According to neighbors, there was an ongoing dispute between Riccitelli and Boglioli, and Harnett said Riccitelli had been harassing Boglioli in an attempt to get him to move.
Harnett said that witnesses, including Jill Adams and Lorenzo DeConnick, would establish Riccitelli’s reputation for violence that, he said, was known throughout the valley. Harnett said Riccitelli threatened to burn down Adams Farm over a dispute, and that, in another dispute, Riccitelli violently assaulted DeConnick, surprising him as he exited the 7-Eleven Market in Dover. In a dispute over rent owed Willis, he said, Riccitelli and a woman with whom he was in a relationship evicted the tenant under the threat of being shot with a crossbow. Harnett said he wasn’t seeking a clinical diagnosis of Riccitelli’s state of mind. “I just need a witness to say he was unstable,” he said. “Riccitelli got a reputation as ‘crazy George’ because he was doing all these things.”
Harnett said it was because of the friction between Boglioli and Riccitelli, and Boglioli’s knowledge of Riccitelli’s reputation, that Boglioli purchased and carried the handgun he used to shoot Riccitelli. “When (Boglioli) asked a neighbor to take him to Delar Depot to buy a gun, he said he wanted a gun because he was scared of George,” Harnett said. “That explains why he was armed that day.”
But Gartenstein argued that witness testimony regarding Riccitelli’s past actions shouldn’t be allowed, since there was no certainty that Boglioli had heard about those specific conflicts. “There is a wide range of evidence of the interactions between the defendant and Riccitelli that provides the context of what happened that day,” Gartenstein said. “Is this trial about what went on between these two guys, or about all the things that make George look like a bad guy?”
On the day of the shooting, according to one witness, Boglioli approached Riccitelli while he was playing basketball outside the building where he lived and shot him at close range. But police affidavits indicate that Boglioli told them he acted in self-defense at the time he was taken into custody. Harnett said that Boglioli left his house to take his trash to a dumpster located near the house where Riccitelli and Willis lived before catching the MOOver. According to Harnett’s account of events, Boglioli was unaware of Riccitelli’s presence until he turned around after depositing his trash in the dumpster. “He turned around and there’s George with an ax handle,” Harnett said, “which was later found in the dumpster.”
Jury selection in the case resumed Thursday morning.
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