HEY,H NOT SOS FAST, FIEND!
Cop-killer’s release blocked by widow suit
The prison release of threetime cop-killer Herman Bell has been put on hold — for now — as the widow of one of the slain cops dukes it out in court with the parole board over its shock decision.
Diane Piagentini, whose husband, NYPD Officer Joseph Piagentini, was shot dead by Bell in 1971, filed a lawsuit Wednesday accusing the board of failing to review minutes from the confessed killer’s 1975 sentencing before deciding to release him.
Those records show Bell was unrepentant for the executionstyle murders of her 28-year-old husband and his partner, Officer Waverly Jones, 33, in Harlem on May 21, 1971. Prosecutors at the time said Bell could never be rehabilitated.
“How did this happen? How could this have happened?” Diane Piagentini, 74, railed to The Post Thursday. “Did the parole board read our transcripts? What is the sense of writing statements when they’re not being read? We don’t really know exactly what the parole board did.”
A state Supreme Court judge in Albany County granted a temporary restraining order, blocking Bell’s release pending an April 13 hearing for the widow’s suit in the court.
“I’m hopeful,” Piagentini said. “It’s in the hands of the law. I believe that the right thing can be done and will be done.”
Now 70, Bell was set to walk free on April 17 after serving 39 years in prison.
He and his co-defendant, Anthony Bottom, were sentenced to 25 years to life for the officers’ murders, the maximum punish- ment allowed at the time.
Bell became eligible for parole in 2004 but was denied seven times, with parole boards saying that releasing him “would deprecate the severity of this crime.”
The Post revealed last month that he was granted release from Shawangunk Correctional Facility in upstate Wallkill after the board voted 2-1 to release him. It said that at age 70, he was not likely to reoffend.
Bell was one of three Black Liberation Army members who ambushed Joseph Piagentini and Jones after luring them to a housing complex with a bogus 911 call.
Piagentini was shot 22 times. The father of two begged for his life before Bell finished him off with his own service weapon. Jones, who left three children, was killed instantly.
Months later, Bell killed Sgt. John Young in San Francisco. He struck a plea deal in 2009 that landed him five years’ probation.
For years, Bell claimed he was framed for the New York murders, and he admitted guilt only in 2010 after going before the board four times.
The Patrolman’s Benevolent Association blasted the admission as “tailored to fit the board’s rehabilitation guidelines” and called for a rescission hearing.
But Bell’s lawyer, Robert Boyle, said that after decades behind bars, he really is a changed man.
“People change. People evolve. That’s the whole point,” he said.
Boyle called Diane Piagentini’s suit “frivolous” and said the board “acted in full compliance of the law.”
Kudos to the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association for winning a temporary stay of the parole granted to three-time copkiller Herman Bell. And the PBA’s lawsuit may succeed in fully reversing the Parole Board’s decision to spring him.
In 1971, Bell and a Black Liberation Army compatriot shot and killed two NYPD officers in Harlem after luring them with a bogus 911 call. He later murdered another cop while raiding a San Francisco police station.
For decades, Bell claimed at parole hearings that he was a “political prisoner.” Only recently has he said “it was murder and horribly wrong” — and may not mean it.
The PBA suit claims the board that voted to free Bell ignored prosecutors’ statements during Bell’s 1975 sentencing that he was “beyond redemption and can never be rehabilitated.” It also notes the board failed to obey the legal mandate to read past sentencing minutes prior to a parole decision.
Before Bell killed him, Officer Joseph Piagentini begged for his life, saying he had a wife and two young daughters. Piagentini’s widow, Diane, has slammed the parole decision as a betrayal: “Herman Bell hasn’t changed . . . he is an assassin.”
Hope the court does the right thing after it hears the PBA’s case April 13 in Albany.