Won’t plead guilty
Lawyer doubts slay susp’s phone confession
A lawyer for the Staten Island man accused of killing his estranged wife and dumping her body in a storage facility says his client has no intention of pleading guilty, despite claims that he confessed to the crime in a phone call.
“Not in the least,” suspect Michael Cammarata’s lawyer Mario Gallucci said Monday in Staten Island Supreme Court. “As a matter of fact, he looks forward to his day in court.”
Cammarata’s girlfriend Ayisha Egea is accused of helping him murder 37-yearold teacher Jeanine Cammarata on March 30.
Her attorney, Mark Fonte, said his investigator received a voicemail on April 29, allegedly from Michael Cammarata, in which he says he wanted to take full responsibility for the gruesome murder and asked for Egea’s charges to be dropped.
“I just wanted to let you know that I’m planning to plead guilty to the charges and that Ayisha Egea, the codefendant, had nothing to do with it and she should be cleared of all charges and her charges should be dropped,” the caller says in a recording of the voicemail heard by the Daily News. “I need to get Ayisha Egea’s charges dropped and take full responsibility for everything,” the caller added.
But Gallucci said there’s no proof that phone call ever happened.
“There is no evidence that even the district attorney can find that my client made a phone call to the investigator of the co-defendant, which, just by the sound of that, is unethical,“he said. ““I think that recording was made under deceit. It was coached by his investigator, if my client even made the statement.”
Fonte used the alleged phone confession as part of his argument to a Staten Island judge Monday to release Egea, who is eight months pregnant.
“The people should come forth and say what is the evidence that my client participated in any way, shape or form in the death of Jeanine. What is it? What did she do? What are the acts attributable to her? Mere presence in a vehicle is not a crime,” Fonte told Justice Mario Mattei.
Fonte also pointed to Egea’s diminutive size as a reason she couldn’t slay the Staten Island mother of three.
“It defies logic that this individual, barely 5 feet tall, six months pregnant [at the time of Cammarata’s murder] had anything to do with the death of Jeanine,” he said.
Both Cammarata and Egea remain held without bail.
Prosecutors say Jeanine Cammarata was killed in her car during an argument with her estranged husband at his Queens home. Cammarata had shown up that evening — two days before a custody hearing — hoping to see her children, according to court documents.
Egea admitted to police that she and Michael Cammarata argued with Jeanine in her vehicle that night around 10 p.m. as they drove around the block but claimed she and Michael eventually left for home without incident, court papers say.
Both Egea and Cammarata are charged with the woman’s murder. Jeanine Cammarata’s charred remains were found five days later in a Staten Island storage facility surrounded by air fresheners in an apparent attempt to mask the smell.