Victim's family outraged over White's sentence
The underlying tensions that filled a Riverhead courtroom during John White's eight-week trial ignited yesterday when a Suffolk County Court judge sentenced the Miller Place man to 2 to 4 years in prison for fatally shooting a Selden teen in the face a year and a half ago.
Saying she believed that White was a "decent man" who was not the only one to blame for Daniel Cicciaro Jr.'s death, Judge Barbara Kahn imposed a sentence that was less than the one she offered White in a plea deal before the trial. He was found guilty in December of second-degree manslaughter for killing Cicciaro, 17, in a confrontation in the middle of the night at the foot of White's Miller Place driveway in August 2006.
The sentence stunned a courtroom filled on one side with Daniel Cicciaro Sr.'s mostly white supporters and on the other with White's mostly black ones, including members of the Fruit of Islam and other activist groups. Another 100 would-be spectators were turned away.
The sentence drove the victim's relatives and supporters into a rage outside the courtroom, which was kept under control by 20 armed security officers. Minutes later, Cicciaro Jr.'s father angrily shouted above the sobs of supporters as he gave an expletive-laden public address that condemned Kahn and all of Suffolk County as "corrupt."
"There's no way in God's creation she did that on her own. There was
pressure behind that court door," Daniel Cicciaro said. "John White murdered my son. He knows he did it, and obviously, the justice system is not going to punish him."
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/suffolk/ny-liwhit205619907mar20,0,1485593.story
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