Calabrese Kin Speaks Out on Convict's Suicide

The family of a Long Beach man who was shot to death in 2004 showed no sympathy to the gunman, who apparently hanged himself in his prison cell hours after he was convicted of first-degree murder on Tuesday.

"I'm not going to show him any remorse because he didn't show any remorse for killing my brother," said Chris Calabrese, whose brother Robert Jr., was gunned down in Island Park over a gambling debt.

. He was facing a maximum of life in prison during a scheduled Dec. 10 sentencing.

Calabrese said he was preparing to write a letter to the court pleading for the maximum sentence when guards hanging from a bed sheet in his jail cell at Nassau County Correctional Facility in East Meadow found Jeannot.

He was taken to the nearby Nassau University Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 12:30 a.m. Wednesday. Jeannot left behind a suicide note, but did not discuss his conviction, said Nassau Homicide Squad Detective Lt. John Azzata.

"He knew that he was going to spend the rest of his life in prison," said Chris Calabrese. "And the fact that he killed himself is, to me, an admission of guilt that he killed my brother. He knew he was guilty and it was too much for him to handle. If he were innocent, he would still be talking about his innocence."

He said he was somewhat shocked when he learned early Wednesday that Jeannot was found dead in his jail cell, the victim of an apparent suicide.

"It was news that I never expected to hear," said Gina Calabrese, the shooting victim's sister. "My family was very satisfied with the guilty conviction. We didn't expect him to take his own life."

She called his suicide "very selfish" and said that he may have been seeking sympathy with his actions. "Yes, I do think that he wants people to feel sorry for him," she added.

Chris Calabrese said he would have liked Jeannot to suffer in an upstate prison for the rest of his life, so that he could think about why he was behind bars and what he did to his brother.

"To kill himself just hours after the verdict shows that there was no way he was getting back in the [corrections department] bus to go upstate," Chris Calabrese said. "And now he's in Hell. I don't think he's anywhere near my brother, who is in Heaven.

"Time and time again he had the opportunity to apologize to us and to admit his guilt, and he didn't," he added.

He said that in the note that Jeannot left behind, "I understand that he just said 'sorry' to his family. There was no mention about my family. There was no remorse, no apology, no nothing."

After the first two trials ended in hung juries, Jeannot was convicted in August 2006 and sentenced to life in prison without parole. But in February 2009, an appellate court tossed out the verdict based on a technicality and errors made by his former defense attorney, which denied him a fair trial.

"Now there are no more appeals, no more technicalities," Chris Calabrese said. "My family doesn't have to sit through that in court anymore."

Jeannot's attorney, William Petrillo, did not return calls for comment.

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