Cipriani, formerly of Meriden, is charged with three counts of murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder, state police said. The maximum penalty for each murder count is 60 years in prison and the conspiracy charge carries up to 20 years, but none of the charges carries the death penalty.
Under Connecticut law, Cipriani could have been charged with capital felony, which carries a possible death sentence. The capital-felony law would apply in the case because more than one person was killed at the same time and because Cipriani is accused of involvement in a murder-for-hire scheme.
The three men arrested in the case are facing capital-felony charges: Jose "Joey" Guzman, 23, formerly of Hartford and Orlando, Fla., who is accused of being the triggerman; Michael Castillo, 20, formerly of 736 Burnside Ave., East Hartford, who is accused of driving Guzman to and from the hit; and Erik J. Martinez, 21, formerly of Hartford, who is accused of aiding in the murders by buying the pistol used in the killing and helping with the payment arrangements.
All three are held in lieu of high bail while awaiting trial, Correction Department records show.
The decision not to file capital-felony charges against Cipriani evidently resulted from the Italian government's opposition to the death penalty. The Italian embassy in Washington, D.C., said Italy won't extradite when the death penalty is anticipated.
"We had to fish or cut bait," said Sgt. J. Paul Vance, the state police spokesman. "We wanted him back to answer these charges."
Monroe lawyer John T. Walkley, who represents Castillo, said the Italian government's insistence that Cipriani not face the death penalty "probably does present the state with a predicament," at least as to Castillo and Martinez, the other two defendants not accused of firing the fatal shots.
Walkley said the prosecutors in the Hartford state's attorney's office are "very fair."
"I think they probably would take death off the table as far as my guy," he added, referring to Castillo.
Hartford State's Attorney James Thomas, who is prosecuting the case, was out of the office Monday, a receptionist in his office said.
Hartford lawyer Kevin Randolph, who represents Martinez, said today that if the state should seek his client's execution, he could introduce evidence of Cipriani's lesser exposure as a "mitigating factor" for the jury to weigh against the death penalty.
"The law says one consideration for a jury in a mitigation case is the penalty imposed or contemplated for any defendant of equal culpability," Randolph said.
Though the three defendants other than Cipirani are facing capital-felony charges, Randolph said prosecutors haven't disclosed whether they will seek death sentences. Capital-felony prosecutions in which the death penalty isn't sought are common. A person convicted of capital felony but not sentenced to death must be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of release.
Cipriani isn't the first Connecticut murder defendant to avoid the possibility of execution by fleeing to a European nation that opposes the death penalty.
New London prosecutors had to agree to forgo the death penalty against lawyer Beth Ann Carpenter when she fled to Ireland in the face of evidence of her involvement in the contract killing of her brother-in-law, Anson "Buzz" Clinton II. She was convicted of capital felony and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Cipriani became a suspect in the triple murder almost immediately after it occurred, when Stears' wife, Shelly, admitted to investigators that she had had a yearlong affair with Cipriani in 2001 and 2002, followed by a year of continuing contact and occasional sexual encounters.
Cipriani flew to Rome eight days after the murders and didn't return to the United States on his scheduled flight Aug. 29, according to a state police detective's affidavit. He was fired from his job at Lepel Cap Sealing in the Long Island town of Edgewood, N.Y., as a result of his failure to return to work by an Aug. 21 deadline, the affidavit states.
West Hartford lawyer Peter Berry, who represents Shelly Stears, said she was very happy and relieved to learn of Cipriani's arrest Monday.
He said she told him later that she had become upset when he gave her the news - in a call to her cellular telephone as she rode in a car in the Orlando, Fla., area, where she was visiting family - because it "brought the deaths back to her."
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