Electrician guilty of killing girlfriend’s millionaire husband

FINALLY, Daniel Pelosi had nothing to say.

As the jury delivered a guilty verdict in the 2001 murder of East Hampton investment banker Theodore Ammon, all Pelosi could do was shut his eyes, hang his head and fight off tears.

The Long Island electrician was convicted of bludgeoning to death his girlfriend’s estranged millionaire husband as he slept in his €8 million mansion. Gone was the defendant who boasted to reporters he’d be home by Christmas. The gregarious guy who winked at supporters throughout his three-month trial was nowhere to be seen.

In the end, Pelosi was done in by his insistence on taking the witness stand in his own defence and offering up “disastrous” testimony, Assistant District Attorney Janet Albertson said.

“If the defendant had simply sat at the table in a fancy suit all dressed up like they tried to keep him, and portray himself as just a simple blue-collar guy, that might have been somewhat believable,” she said. Instead “he came across like what he was ... an anti-social, criminal personality who takes no responsibility for anything that he does.”

Pelosi married Ammon’s widow, Generosa, three months after the slaying, although they later split. He received €1.5m in a postnuptial agreement, but spent every penny on his defence. Generosa Ammon died of cancer last year.

Monday’s verdict capped eight weeks of testimony that made headlines with tales of greed, adultery and family betrayal. Pelosi, 41, was having an affair with Ammon’s estranged wife at the time of the murder, having been introduced to her a year earlier when he was hired to work on a renovation project at her Manhattan townhouse.

Pelosi faces 25 years to life at a January 25 sentencing.