[NYPD] By day he protected New York City. Nights, he beat Jeanne.

...By day, Galtieri used to protect the city as a police sergeant. Then, court records show, he went home and beat his then-wife Jeanne Kane like a punching bag... Prosecutors say Galtieri waited in the park-and-ride lot for more than five hours to kill Ms. Kane because he was enraged over the couple's million-dollar divorce settlement... Retired police sergeant John Galtieri joked to a restaurant colleague about wanting to shoot his former wife...
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• [NYPD] Pretrial on wife-Jeanne's murder for Sgt. Galtieri
• [NY] Some of ex NYPD Galtieri's words protected in murder-of-Jeanne trial

PENSION REVERTED TO COP AFTER EX-WIFE'S SLAYING
Jury in murder trial hears that monthly stipend keyed acrimony in divorce
Staten Island Advance NY
By Jeff Harrell
Saturday, January 24, 2009
[Excerpts] Jeanne Kane received all but $7 of her ex-husband's monthly $2,700 police pension checks up to the day she was shot and killed at a Pleasant Plains park-and-ride in January 2007. Upon her death, John Galtieri got his full pension checks back. "When the ex-spouse dies, the benefits revert back to the beneficiary," Rhonda Cavagnaro, general counsel for the NYPD's Pension Fund, told jurors yesterday, the opening day of Galtieri's murder trial in state Supreme Court, St. George. Prosecutors say Galtieri waited in the park-and-ride lot for more than five hours to kill Ms. Kane because he was enraged over the couple's million-dollar divorce settlement in 2003... Ms. Kane began receiving monthly pension checks in July 2005, initially for $1,500. That amount rose to $2,720 by the following November. Galtieri's checks plummeted from $1,205.05 in July to $7.05 in November. The amounts were so meager, Galtieri didn't bother to open the envelopes they arrived in. "He wasn't cashing the checks," Ms. Cavagnaro said, "so we stopped sending them out." Ms. Kane's former divorce attorney, Karen Schermond, said Galtieri chose to file for bankruptcy rather than pay his ex-wife alimony. "He would simply fail to pay," Ms. Schermond testified. "He would refuse, or not send her the money"... "He was suing anybody he thought had anything to do with giving his money to Jeanne Kane," [Assistant District Attorney Adam] Silberlight said. At 12:30 p.m., Galtieri was captured on video at the park-and-ride lot getting out of his silver Chrysler Concorde... Later that day, shortly before 6 p.m., Ms. Kane was waiting in her car to pick up daughter Tricia when she was shot in the head. She was pronounced dead on arrival at Staten Island University Hospital, Ocean Breeze. A week later, the NYPD Pension Fund sent the monthly check to Galtieri for the full amount -- $2,754.55... [Full article here]

CO-WORKER SAYS COP JOKED ABOUT KILLING HIS EX-WIFE
Staten Island Advance NY
By Jeff Harrell
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
[Excerpts] Retired police sergeant John Galtieri joked to a restaurant colleague about wanting to shoot his former wife, the co-worker told jurors yesterday. "He said, 'I'd like to kill the [bleep],'" Angela Peikidis, 32, recalled from conversations in late 2006, when the pair worked at Quizno's in Punta Gorda, Fla., where Galtieri moved following his messy divorce from Jeanne Kane in 2003. Ms. Peikidis said Galtieri, who worked as a manager at the Quizno's, made the remarks in the context of banter in the back kitchen... Galtieri, 63, a former NYPD sergeant, is charged with murdering Ms. Kane on Jan. 30, 2007, as she sat in her car waiting to pick up her daughter at the Pleasant Plains park-and-ride. Prosecutors allege that Galtieri lay in wait for more than five hours to murder Ms. Kane, so angry was he over the divorce settlement that totaled nearly $1 million... [Full article here]

MURDER-TRIAL JURORS SEE VIDEO
Sequences put ex-cop at park-and-ride where former wife was killed, according to prosecutors
Staten Island Advance NY
By JEFF HARRELL
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
[Excerpts] Jurors in the murder trial of retired police sergeant John Galtieri yesterday saw a series of video sequences that prosecutors say put him at the park-and-ride where his former wife was slain. The first, at 12:30 on Jan. 30, 2007, shows a man walking beside a building at the Pleasant Plains location, carrying a jacket. In the last, more than five hours later, a flash of light appears on the side of a car in the upper right portion of the frame. Prosecutors contend that's the muzzle flash of the gunshot that killed Jeanne Kane as she waited to pick up her daughter... Police and prosecutors also focused on a silver-gray Chrysler Concorde allegedly belonging to Galtieri seen parked in the lot at different intervals throughout the afternoon. Still photos lifted from the surveillance video first picked the car up at 12:42 p.m. in front of the main building. The vehicle was also seen parked in the lot at 2:12 p.m. 2:18 p.m., 2:37 p.m. and 3:47 p.m. Video shows the car driving away at 4:16 p.m., then re-entering the lot at 4:53 p.m. Subsequent video footage shows the car remained parked in the same spot until 5:48 p.m., when Jeanne Kane's car is seen pulling into the lot and stopping in a parking space. The silver-gray car pulls out, circles the lot, then drives back to the side of Ms. Kane's car. There's a flash of light, and the vehicle drives off at exactly 5:50 p.m... [Full article here]

DAUGHTER DISOWNS COP WHO'S ON TRIAL FOR MURDER
Calls him 'the defendant' in court and talks of his violent relationship with her mother
Staten Island Advance
By Jeff Harrell
Thursday, January 29, 2009
[Excerpts] She refused to acknowledge as her father the retired police sergeant accused of killing her mother. "Yes," Patricia Kane replied yesterday from the witness stand when asked if she could identify John Galtieri. "He's the defendant"... Patricia Kane, 27, told jurors she hadn't spoken with her father since "2000," and that she'd legally changed her name from Galtieri to Kane. "Toward the end it was all violent," Ms. Kane said of her parents, who split in 1999. "They were constantly fighting"... When contact broke off completely between Galtieri and his ex-wife, he tried to broker a settlement in a note the daughter found on her car parked on Hylan Boulevard when she returned from the bus one summer evening in 2005. "Hi Trish," the note began. "I'm writing to you instead of your mother because I don't want to cause anymore friction"... "It's not a very loving letter," Ms. Kane told defense attorney David Schwartz after admitting that she felt "threatened" by the note. "I had an eerie feeling that someone had followed me there and I didn't know he was there"... The note caused Patricia Kane to switch bus stops -- from Hylan Boulevard to the Pleasant Plains park-and-ride. On Jan. 30, 2007, Jeanne Kane dropped Patricia off to catch the morning bus at 7:35. They spoke over the phone a couple of times during the day. At 5 p.m., she phoned her mother to let her know she was on her way home. Jeanne Kane called her daughter back and left a message. A little after 6 p.m., Ms. Kane stepped off the bus into a swarm of police cars, flashing lights and emergency vehicles. She spotted her Volkswagen Jetta but didn't see her mother. "The one window was just smashed," Ms. Kane recalled. Police said Jeanne Kane was shot to death at 5:50 p.m... [Full article here]

FROM LAST WEEK:

MILLION-DOLLAR MOTIVE FOR FORMER COP IN EX-WIFE'S MURDER
Staten Island Advance NY
by Jeff Harrell
Sunday January 18, 2009
[Excerpts] The accused killer limped slowly into the courtroom a few days ago with the help of a cane. John Galtieri wore a pressed black suit, white shirt and tie to hear Justice Stephen J. Rooney set Tuesday as the day jury selection would begin in his murder trial. But the businessman's attire did little to disguise the graying, bespectacled shell of one of NYPD's former Finest who never got the memo that nobody is above the law. By day, Galtieri used to protect the city as a police sergeant. Then, court records show, he went home and beat his then-wife Jeanne Kane like a punching bag. Small wonder that Ms. Kane, who performed with her identical sisters as The Kane Triplets on several notable TV shows during the 1950s and 1960s, gave up her singing career right before she and her sisters were supposed to tour with Frank Sinatra in the 1970s. There wasn't enough makeup to hide the bruises of a controlling husband under the bright spotlight of a Sinatra stage. Mercy arrived when they got divorced. In 2003, Ms. Kane walked away with $1 million, including $400,000 in damages and a bulk of Galtieri's NYPD pension. The judge admitted he was more impressed with Ms. Kane's resolve in staying in a tortured marriage than he was with case files showing that Galtieri's right hook found his battered wife's pretty face way too often. Galtieri was not amused... Galtieri had the one thing nobody else seems to have when it comes to the life and murderous death of Jeanne Kane. Motive. A million bucks' worth. [Full article here]
[STATEN ISLAND, N.Y., nyc, officer-involved domestic violence, murder, money]