Judge’s grandson sentenced to jail for road-rage incident
NORRISTOWN » A Gladwyne man, the grandson of a former judge and the son of a disgraced Norristown lawyer, who previously served probation for lewd behavior was sent to jail after he spewed a racial slur at another man while holding a chainsaw and shouting, “It’s a white man’s world” during a road rage incident in Lower Merion.
Vincent Anthony Cirillo III, 33, of the 1100 block of Maplecrest Circle, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court to 11½ to 23 months in the county jail after he pleaded guilty to a felony charge of ethnic intimidation in connection with a July 2019 incident.
County Judge William R. Carpenter, who
accepted a plea agreement in the matter, also ordered Cirillo to complete three years’ probation following parole, meaning Cirillo will be under court supervision for about five years.
Carpenter ordered Cirillo to undergo a psychological evaluation and to comply with all recommendations for treatment.
Cirillo is prohibited from having contact with the victim.
Cirillo is the son of Vincent A. Cirillo Jr., 61, a former Norristown criminal defense lawyer who had a law office on East Penn Street and who was convicted during a February 2017 trial of rape and
other sexual assault-related charges. A jury found that the elder Cirillo, who was sentenced in May 2017 to 10 to 20 years in prison, sexually assaulted an impaired female client Aug. 3, 2015, at the woman’s West Norriton residence.
Cirillo III also is the grandson of the late Vincent A. Cirillo, a former Lower Merion commissioner, county prosecutor and well-respected county judge who went on to be president judge of the Pennsylvania Superior Court from 1986 to 1990.
The latest investigation of Cirillo III began about 5:23 p.m. July 15, 2019, when Lower Merion police were dispatched to the intersection of Bryn Mawr Avenue and North Highland Road for a report of a disturbance involving an armed subject.
A man told police he was driving west on Bryn Mawr Avenue, with his 2-year-old daughter in his vehicle, when a silver Dodge pickup truck suddenly stopped in front of him, forcing him to slam on his brakes. Cirillo, who was driving the pickup truck, got out of his vehicle, according to court papers.
The victim, who is Black, told police Cirillo began to yell, “It’s a white man’s world” as he opened the back door of the truck and “removed a chainsaw with an orange guard,” according to the criminal complaint.
Cirillo then removed the guard and tried to start the chainsaw about five to six times as he continued to yell “It’s a white man’s world,” used obscenities and called the victim a racial epithet, according to
the criminal complaint filed by Lower Merion Police Officer James Black.
“While wielding the chainsaw, the male (Cirillo) walked towards (the victim’s) vehicle and yelled, ‘I’m going to kill you, you f ****** n ***** ,’” Black alleged. “(The victim) locked the doors of his vehicle.
“A white female then exited the passenger side of the truck and prompted (Cirillo) to return to his truck, which then left the scene,” Black added.
Police used vehicle registration information to identify Cirillo as the operator of the pickup truck, court papers indicate.
Other misdemeanor charges of terroristic threats, possessing an instrument of crime and simple assault were dismissed against Cirillo in exchange
for his guilty plea to the most serious felony ethnic intimidation charge.
It wasn’t Cirillo’s first run in with the law.
In July 2017, Cirillo was sentenced to four years’ probation for engaging in lewd behavior in view of a teenager and for making threatening remarks to a neighbor in connection with two incidents that occurred between May 2016 and February 2017.
Cirillo, then of the 200 block of Hampden Avenue in Lower Merion, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of indecent exposure and corruption of a minor connection with a May 28, 2016, incident during which he exposed himself and masturbated while he stood at an open window of his residence in view of a teenage girl in his neighborhood.
Additionally, Cirillo pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of terroristic threats in connection with a Feb. 28, 2017, incident in his neighborhood during which he yelled obscenities and made threatening remarks to a woman he had never met.
At the time, as a condition of that sentence, a judge ordered Cirillo to continue with the therapy he was receiving from psychologists.
Cirillo was still on probation at the time of his latest arrest. Cirillo admitted he violated the probation and he was sentenced to a new four year probationary term for the violation. Judge Carpenter also ordered Cirillo to enroll in an outpatient anger management treatment program.