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“I was very disappointed,” Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli told CLIFFVIEWPILOT.COM. “Justice has spoken nevertheless and we are bound to accept the verdict.”
The first woman said she and Joseph Picolli had sex for three years, beginning when she was 13, and got her pregnant several times — the results being four abortions and one miscarriage.
Picolli, who was 31 when he was arrested five years ago, said she made the whole thing up. He was indicted the following year, but that was dismissed when prosecutors failed to disclose that the woman had made similar accusations against other men.
A second obtainment led to a mistrial the first day when prosecutors made another goof.
Picolli, a married father of two, maintained his innocence through it all.
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The Lyndhurst woman said she was an eighth-grader at Sacred Heart School when she was walking home from school one day when and Picolli began chatting with her, gave her a box of pens and offered to let her into his nightclub for free if she handed out fliers for him.
She said they later exchanged phone numbers and began a relationship that ended n 2004, a few months after her 18th birthday.
The woman ended up going to a school for children with learning disabilities. She eventually was arrested and convicted for drug possession, among other charges.
“I am hopeful that the jury did not look differently upon the young victim based on what she did years later, which we thought had always been an unfortunate response to what she went through,” Molinelli said.
The prosecutor said his office still plans to pursue similar charges against Picolli involving another underage girl who came forward after the first case came to light.
An Oct. 26 hearing is scheduled.
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