A suspect in an unsolved 2008 slaying of two married Marine Park attorneys was sentenced to 15 years in prison last week after pleading guilty to helping the murdered couple bilk more than $1 million from their hapless clients — a plea arrangement that outraged homicide detectives who believe the convicted con man had gunned the victims down in their beds.
“Delvicario’s fraud arrest didn’t bring us any closer to who did the killing,” one police source told this paper. “But I guess everyone has their priorities.”
Prosecutors say Robert Delvicario preyed upon divorce attorney Mark Schwartz’s client list with the lawyer’s permission — a fraud conspiracy that was hatched shortly before Schwartz and his wife, Christina Petrowski-Schwartz, were found assassinated inside their E. 33rd Street home.
Detectives believed that Delvicario had killed the two attorneys over cash they had already taken from Schwartz’s clients — and were outraged when their case against him fell apart as Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes filed fraud charges against him and three business associates.
Delvicario ultimately pleaded guilty to enterprise corruption.
Investigators say someone crept into the Schwartz’s home near Fillmore Avenue in the middle of the night and shot each victim in the head as they slept. Whoever did it must have been to the couple’s home before: he managed to subdue the couple’s protective German shepherd, which was found leashed in the backyard the next morning.
Investigators said that Delvicario had known Schwartz for decades and had been to his house repeatedly, but defense attorney Michael Cibella insisted that his client had nothing to do with the killings.
“There’s a laundry list of suspects,” Cibella told reporters. “The [district attorney’s office] brought the enterprise corruption indictment hoping to crack the homicide. But that never happened.”
No one has ever been arrested for the double murder.
Prosecutors never brought up the killings at the sentencing.
“The defendant stole and laundered over a million dollars in money,” Brooklyn prosecutor Laura Neubauer told Judge John Walsh. “The bulk of theft was from innocent and unknown victims.”
Delvicario, who wore a rosary under his orange Department of Correction jumpsuit, declined to speak during his sentencing.
Reach reporter Colin MIxson at cmixson@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-4514.