Jury selection begins in slaying of banker

The suspect had knowledge of the victim's security system, prosecutors say.
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (AP) -- One man was a millionaire Manhattan investment banker who supported cultural institutions like Lincoln Center. The other was an electrician from Long Island with a history of alcohol abuse and numerous scrapes with the law.
Their lives intersected over a beautiful woman.
Jury selection begins Tuesday in eastern Long Island to determine if Daniel Pelosi, the electrician, fatally bludgeoned banker Theodore Ammon nearly three years ago in the bedroom of Ammon's sprawling East Hampton mansion.
Pelosi, 41, was charged earlier this year with second-degree murder. If convicted, the man who oversaw the installation of a security system in Ammon's mansion -- and who later married the victim's widow -- faces 25 years to life in prison. He is being held without bail.
Prosecutors say Ammon suffered fractures to his hands and ribs and was beaten in the head with a blunt object more than 30 times. He also was zapped repeatedly with a stun gun; prosecutors say Pelosi had purchased "numerous stun guns" before the killing.
Security system
They also allege Pelosi's intimate knowledge of the security system allowed him to disable it. The computer hard drive that operated it was missing when police arrived.
"One of the only individuals who was aware of the location of that hard-drive unit as well as the power source ... was Daniel Pelosi," said Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Janet Albertson.
She said Pelosi accessed the security system for 21 minutes shortly before 2 a.m. on Oct. 21, 2001 -- the approximate time Ammon was killed. His body was discovered the following day by a business associate.
Ammon, whose estate was worth a reported $100 million, ran the private equity firm Chancery Lane Capital, chaired Jazz at Lincoln Center and was a trustee at his alma mater, Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa. He also was a former general partner at the investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & amp; Co.
At the time he was killed, he was days away from finalizing a bitter divorce from Generosa Ammon. She married Pelosi just months after Ammon's death, but the couple later split up. She died of cancer last summer.
Defense
Pelosi is represented by Manhattan attorney Gerald Shargel, who insists that, on the night Ammon died, his client was traveling from New York City to his sister's home in the Long Island town of Center Moriches -- nearly 40 miles from Ammon's East Hampton home.
"He wasn't in East Hampton," Shargel says.
Shargel also intends to question the tactics of police and prosecutors, noting some of Pelosi's friends have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit saying they were harassed by investigators.
In another twist, one of the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit has his own legal headaches.
Christopher Parrino was charged last spring with criminal facilitation and hindering prosecution in the Ammon case. Then in July, he was convicted of falsely telling police he was driving when he and Pelosi were stopped for drunken driving in September 2001. Pelosi has since pleaded guilty to the DWI charge.
Lawyers have also been busy arguing over the millions left by Ammon, and later, his widow. In her will, Generosa Ammon left the couple's two teenage children in the custody of their British-born nanny, who also was given $1 million lifetime residence in the East Hampton home. The bulk of the estate went to the children.
Pelosi, who was given a $2 million payout when he split from Generosa Ammon, wants more and is challenging that agreement in court.
Ammon's sister is also fighting in court to get custody of the two children.
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