Man Surrenders in Millionaire's Slaying

Tuesday March 23, 2004 3:31 P

By FRANK ELTMAN, Associated Press Writer

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (AP) - An electrician who married a wealthy widow three months after her husband was bludgeoned to death in his East Hampton mansion surrendered Tuesday to face charges in the killing.
Daniel Pelosi, accompanied by three defense lawyers, arrived Tuesday morning at the Suffolk County Courthouse. The precise charges against Pelosi, 40, were not expected to be announced until his arraignment before Supreme Court Justice Robert W. Doyle, said Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota.

Pelosi became the focus of tabloid headlines - and a grand jury probe - after he married widow Generosa Ammon in January 2002. The couple later split and she has since died of cancer. Defense lawyer Gerald Shargel said Monday that his client would ``plead an emphatic not guilty'' in the October 2001 killing. Ammon and her multimillionaire husband, Theodore Ammon, were just days away from finalizing a nasty divorce when he was killed in his sprawling Long Island mansion. An autopsy showed he was smashed in the head with a blunt object. Generosa Ammon married Pelosi three months later. The estate was worth a reported $100 million.

Pelosi, who has a record of drunken driving arrests and other skirmishes with law enforcement, has repeatedly proclaimed his innocence in Ammon's death. Generosa Ammon died in August at age 46. Pelosi received a reported $2 million post-nuptial payment, but nothing in her will. Pelosi's attorneys are challenging the validity of the will in court, and Ammon's sister is fighting for custody of her two children. In court papers released last August, Doyle said that a suspect in the killing owned a laptop computer that was used to access a security system in Ammon's mansion on the weekend of the death. While Doyle did not name Pelosi, he wrote, ``the individual who is a target of this investigation married the widow of the murder victim.''

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-3894227,00.html

I just wonder why it took them so long to charge him! It was pretty clear it was an inside job from the beginning.