Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Dippolito to stick with strategy in next trial
Dalia Dippolito’s attorneys are going to stick with the same strategy for an upcoming third trial in the murder-for-hire case: It’s all about police misconduct.
This condemn-the-cops defense worked in Dippolito’s second trial — swaying three of the six jurors — and forced Wednesday’s mistrial due to the hung jury.
While prosecutors had pleaded with the jurors that “the police aren’t on trial,” the reality is that the defense made sure the police were targeted — unlike the first trial in 2011 that resulted in a conviction and 20-year prison sentence.
“We are making progress in getting our message out,” lead defense attorney Brian Claypool told reporters, standing beside the Boynton Beach woman accused since 2009 of hiring a police officer posing as a hit man to kill her then-husband, Michael Dippolito.
He called it a “partial victory” that three jurors this time refused to return a guilty verdict after about eight hours of deliberations that included listening again to undercover police recordings of Dippolito allegedly speaking of murder.
“If they want Round Three, bring it on … we can’t wait.” Brian Claypool, lead defense attorney
The California-based lawyer, who appears as a legal analyst on national television programs, turned the trial into a referendum on policing at a time when cops across the country are being criticized for unfair arrests and shootings.
“If these same arguments were made in 2011, it could have been a different result,” Claypool said. In his closing argument Monday, he told the jury, “This case is about holding law enforcement accountable not only here, but everywhere.”
Stuart Kaplan, a Palm Beach County defense lawyer representing Michael Dippolito, said one factor that could have played in the deadlocked jury is public scrutiny of officers is heightened across the country. The public is less likely to rubber-stamp everything done by police, said Kaplan, a former FBI agent.
“The integrity of any criminal investigation is always at issue,” he said. “I think six years ago, you could get around it, and that law enforcement would certainly get the benefit of the doubt, if in fact there were some mistakes.”
But “we’re in 2016 going into 2017. Law enforcement across the board is not going to get any breaks.”
Boynton Beach Police Chief Jeffrey Katz — his department maligned in the trial covered by national and local media — responded to the mistrial with the same statement he released in February.
“We stand behind the principled work our detectives did on this investigation,” Katz said. “We trust in our State Attorney to successfully prosecute this case, and we are confident we have given his office sufficient evidence to meet the State’s burden.”
Soon after the mistrial, Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg informed reporters the prosecution continues despite what happened.
“My office will retry this case at the earliest opportunity,” he said in a statement. “Due to ethical rules, I cannot comment further because this is again a pending case.”
Mike Edmondson, Aronberg’s spokesman, said the office did not have an estimate of how much has been spent to date to prosecute Dippolito, 34.
Claypool, who has said he has worked on the case for free, replied, “If they want Round Three, bring it on … we can’t wait.”
Michael Dippolito, the target of the alleged attempt on his life, later said at a news conference with his attorneys that he’s disappointed his ex-wife avoided a conviction, and remains out of prison.
“This is crazy,” he said, joined by attorneys Elizabeth Parker, the former lead prosecutor on the case, and Kaplan. “I mean, this is endless.”
While thanking Boynton Beach police, Michael Dippolito was critical of the way the prosecutors this time presented fewer witnesses, and didn’t tell the jury about past mistreatment by his then wife.
“I was a little disappointed that the people on the jury (didn’t) get to hear the full story,” said Dippolito, who testified for hours during the first trial but wasn’t called for Round Two.
Circuit Judge Glenn Kelley scheduled a Jan. 6 hearing with the attorneys to discuss the next retrial.
For now, Dippolito will return to her house arrest under the terms of a $25,000 bond. Claypool had urged the jury for an acquittal to “give her that freedom back, to go home to her family and her infant son.”
After the jurors were thanked for their service and dismissed, the judge Wednesday asked her lawyers about the baby, noting he had seen nothing about motherhood in any of the court documents.
Defense attorney Greg Rosenfeld said health privacy laws prevented disclosing that Dippolito was pregnant and delivered a baby in a hospital. He said the Palm Beach County Sheriff ’s Office, which oversees the house-arrest program, was aware of her visits with doctors and the hospital stay.
“Dalia Dippolito has a little boy and that’s all we’re going to comment,” Claypool said when asked for details about the child. “She is a loving parent.”
Dippolito declined to answer questions.
A relieved Dippolito hugged her lawyers and her mother after Judge Kelley declared the mistrial.
Late Tuesday, the jury of four women and two men first announced it could not reach a unanimous verdict.
The judge asked the jurors to return in the morning to try again. But after 30 more minutes Wednesday, the jury sent a note indicating the split remained. The jury also asked if there was an alternative to the charge of solicitation to commit first-degree murder with a firearm.
Before answering, Kelley questioned each juror individually over defense concerns that at least one juror had been exposed to media coverage of the case, and may have even spoken with a television news reporter.
Dippolito’s attorneys previously lost bids to move the trial outside of Palm Beach County, arguing too many prospective jurors knew about Dippolito from “negative” news reports.
It was a problem with jury selection that prompted a state appeals court in 2014 to grant Dippolito a new trial.
After the jurors Wednesday said they had no contact with the news media, the judge asked the panel to give it one last shot. He told them there is no alternative charge in the case.
Prosecutors had urged another conviction based on videos and recordings of Dippolito speaking both with an ex-lover who served as a police informant, and the undercover cop who pretended to be a hit man.
The jury heard Dippolito tell Officer Widy Jean, the fake hit man, she was “5,000 percent sure I want it done.”
And while speaking about the murder plans, she told police informant Mohamed Shihadeh, “Nobody’s going to be able to point a finger at me.”
Attorneys for Dippolito, abandoned the defense used in her original trial: a claim she was only acting for reality TV show ambitions pushed by her thenspouse.
Claypool flipped it around by blaming the police for violating standard police practices by concocting the case against Dippolito to please the producers of the “Cops” reality television program.
The defense said police were so fixated on making a “sexy and salacious” episode and gaining fame, they:
threatened the informant to cooperate;
never checked out whether Dippolito was a victim of domestic abuse; destroyed evidence; and even planned a “viewing party” to celebrate the Dippolito spot on “Cops.”
“If you find Dalia Dippolito guilty, you are casting a vote for police corruption,” said Claypool, calling the videos “contaminated and tainted.”
“We revere good police officers,” Claypool told reporters outside the courthouse in West Palm Beach. “But in this case it was about a handful of police officers who weren’t following the rules — they were rogue.”
The lawyers also argued the “egregious” conduct of Boynton Beach police included the posting of a YouTube video of Dippolito at a staged crime-scene that went viral.
In the Aug. 5, 2009, video of police officers approaching Dippolito, she is seen shrieking when informed her husband had just been killed in their home.
“It’s an act, she’s probably dancing inside, (because) she got what she wanted,” prosecutor Laura Laurie said in her closing argument Tuesday.
She said allegations against the police were intended to “deflect, deflect, deflect” away from the recordings.
Laurie, with prosecutor Craig Williams, said there was “not an ounce of hesitation” on Dippolito’s part when she dealt with the hit man.
Later, Michael Dippolito said it all could have been avoided had his ex-wife just left the marriage.
“In reality, all she had to do was divorce me,” he said. “What was I going to do? Cry? … In the end, nobody would’ve gotten in trouble.”
Despite Boynton police being portrayed in a negative light, he said he was thankful for officers’ help. “I mean, look, they saved my life and I’m sitting here talking,” he said.