In a serious miscarriage of justice, John White—a black man who shot and killed a white teenager for showing up on his property, threatening his family, has been convicted.
It was chilling to see the father of Daniel Cicciaro, who showed up in court to hear the verdict with a bald head and tatoo marks in his head. This is something you generally see in skinheads.
What the Cicciaros are not able to explain is why it is that their son showed up on Mr. White’s property with threats? Why didn’t he leave when he saw Mr. White step out of the house with a gun to protect himself?
“I felt so much, I guess, compassion for [White's wife] Sonia White when she was up on the stand and said the words, ‘My life changed,’” Joanne Cicciaro said. “I was saying the same thing. Mine did, too. All of our lives changed in that moment. Their lives were ruined forever in that moment, too.”
I guess they do feel compassion for Mrs. White. Her husband is now in huge trouble for defending his son, his own life and his home.
And while still maintaining that race should not have become as great a factor as it did during the trial, Cicciaro acknowledged yesterday what he said was a different kind of racism in the case — one that targeted his family and supporters, many of them rough-edged with shaved heads and tattoos.
“People call us skinheads, but we don’t run to the police saying, ‘Look at how they’re judging us,’” Cicciaro Sr. said. “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
Daniel, Sr. leaving son’s funeral
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Their son obviously learned his racist hate from them. I agree with you Lynn, who else goes around with shaved heads that have tattoos on them and ringlead mobs spewing hate to someone’s home hurling all sorts of racial threats?
The next piece of drama in this case is this juror who in my opinion now wants to be seen.
Francois Larche claims in this interview, that he was bullied by the judge and other jurors to change his vote in the case.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/12242007/news/regionalnews/juror__i_was_guilt_tripped_774241.htm
Yet, in this article, he crticizes the defense and claims that the evidence left him no choice in his decision.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/suffolk/ny-limill245513821dec24,0,2679006.story
He gave an interview to News 12 Long Island where he claims that he had to be escorted by court officers to his meals because of the threats and harassment he received by other jurors. Why wasn’t this brought to the defense’s attention sooner or anyone else’s for that matter? It seems so after the fact. I really have to wonder was he really harassed or is he looking to make a name for himself and write a book now?
Diva,
Thanks for this update. This is one of the most pathetic cases and instances of misjustice I have ever witnessed in my life.
The man shows up in court sporting a tattooed head, which tells you what the family belief system is. He cannot explain why his son was on Mr. White’s property, drunk and threatening him. Unbelievable that this is happening in New York of all places. Wow.
…And the jurors were a joke, plain and simple.
[insult removed by Lynn] You overlook every detail that makes this case what it is.
“It began when a girl was told that Aaron White, 19, had threatened to rape her; it escalated when she told her friends about White, who challenged those friends to “settle the dispute” at his residence; it will end with White’s father serving a measly 2-4 year sentence for shooting one of the friends dead with an illegally-purchased weapon.
The victim, 17 year-old Daniel Cicciaro Jr., was unarmed, as were the friends he was with. They were confronted by White’s father, 54 year-old John White, at the foot of White’s driveway. In the middle of the argument, Jon White shot Cicciaro in the head while standing no more than three inches from contact. Of course, the Whites claimed that the shooting was an accident, but what really mattered in the courtroom was a fact that was immediately obvious: Cicciaro was white and John White and his son are black.
LYNN’s RESPONSE: First of all, if you ever come in here and call us a name again, you’ll be instantly banned. Take your rage elsewhere. Secondly, WHY was Daniel at this man’s house? Huh? A white girl told a LIE on Aaron White and as a result, this group of thugs ended up at this man’s home THREATENING to RAPE his wife with their DRUNK selves and calling them NIGGERS and threatening to LYNCH them. Don’t play this down!
ELF said: That is why in court, John White talked about the stories he had heard about his grandfather and how the Ku Klux Klan operated back in the 1920′s. White argued that those stories left a mental scar and how he feared for his life when Cicciaro and his friends arrived. The defense argued that the shooting was justified and likened the group of teenagers to a “lynch mob.” It was even brought up that, after Cicciaro was shot in the face and his friends were racing to the hospital, the “N-word” was being used, which could be heard in the recorded 911 emergency call.
LYNN’s RESPONSE: I’m certain that visions of lynchings DID dance around in his head as this group of hoods stood there threatening this man. All of them, the girl included, should be in jail right now. Mr. White is the victim here. And his son is a victim.
ELF said: The Cicciaro family knew before the trial that the defendant would try to play the race card. They weren’t worried. They probably thought the system would see that the Cicciaro’s were “good Christians” and believed justice would be served.
LYNN’s RESPONSE: LOL! What kind of fantasy world are you living in? These “good Christians” have toilet cesspool mouths and vocabularies, are aggressive…AND the father even made an ominous THREAT againt the victim (Aaron’s life). Everyone, remember that all this started as a LIE told by a girl. These “Christians” have called the Whites every filthy name in the book, threatened them, showed up on their property, and are not yet through with their abuse of this family!
ELF said: From the other side of the fence, the Cicciaro’s sounded like the sort of “good Christians” who would play along no matter the verdict was. The mainstream media was happy to cover the Cicciaro trial for that reason all the way until right before the sentencing. And why not? The Cicciaro murder story made front-page news in 2006 and after that, the Cicciaro’s said everything the media wanted them to, stressing forgiveness, voicing sympathy for the White family and so on.
LYNN’s RESPONSE: Where on earth do you get this “good Christian” nonsense from? The man showed up in court with a bald head and has been rumored to be a skinhead. These people are aggressive. That’s not the average person’s idea of a Christian. His drunken son showed up at Mr. White’s door threatening to rape the man’s wife. Christian???
ELF Said: The New York Times even wrote a nice little piece about Cicciaro’s funeral shortly after the incident. The article mentioned that the teen was college-bound, loved cars and was anxious to work for his father’s auto-repair company, “Dano’s”. At the time, that may have been a nice consolation to those grieving over their loss, but it was nothing the Cicciaro family was willing to accept in exchange for the races of those involved determining the case.
LYNN’s RESPONSE: Again, stay off a man’s property because EVERY MAN has the right to defend his family!
ELF said: With Cicciaro’s response to the sentencing, the media’s spin on the case changed. The brave boy who showed up to defend the honor of the woman who feared she would be raped was now the drunken white boy who rolled up at a black boy’s home in “lynch mob” form with his buddies.
LYNN’s RESPONSE: “Elf”, we don’t play games here. A LIE was told that Aaron White had threatened to rape a girl. Why didn’t the drunken boy call the police? WHY did he threaten, then show up at the door of the Whites with threats and a lynch mob? Yes, it was a lynch mob. They were not there to play patty cakes!
Elf Said: There were no MSNBC, FOX or CNN microphones at Mr. Cicciaro’s public address, moments after he learned that White would only serve between 2 and 4 years in prison instead of a maximum prison sentence of 16 years. Not a single major reporter could be seen in the room, either.
Cicciaro can see it now, but it was all very predictable: it did not matter if he and his family were “good Christians” or not, racial considerations determined the verdict of the case the moment Daniel Cicciaro Jr. was shot. Race also determined the way the press would respond to the sentencing and how the press also expected the victim’s father to respond if he wanted their sympathies. After the sentencing, Cicciaro did not play the role. He blamed real things and real people like John White, not concepts like “the history of race relations between whites and blacks” or, in the words of the defense, the nation’s “violent past.”
So where are the same sort of protests that followed the verdict for the “Jena 6″? Where is the media to fuel that fire? And by comparison, how did White get 2-4 years for murder when 18 year-old Jeremiah Munsen is facing up to ten years in prison for driving by 20,000 Jena 6 protestors with extension cords hanging from his truck and tied together like a noose?”
LYNN’s RESPONSE: If you want to live, DON’T tell a LIE that a young man has threatened to rape a girl. If you want to live, CALL THE POLICE if you believe your friend has been threatened. IF You want to live, DON’T get DRUNK, and threaten to rape a man’s wife and lynch his son. This has NOTHING to do with a Jena 6. NOTHING.
I just want to clarify that I live in the same county that this case occured in and have been following it rather closely, particularly since it is close to my home.
First of all, some of the news sources got it a little twisted about the rape story. Apparently, Michael Longo, a ‘so-called friend’ of Aaron White had unbeknownst to Aaron, several months before the incident, created a fake myspace page that was used to send threatening messages to Jennifer Martin (the sister of Craig, whom hosted the party that the group all attended that fateful night).
Jennifer was led to believe that the messages threatening rape were sent by Aaron who again had no knowledge of the fake myspace page or that messages were sent by someone claiming to be him. Secondly,Jennifer at some point learned that this was a hoax, yet she still chose to share with Daniel Cicciaro, Jr. a.k.a. Dano, for some reason that she felt “uncomfortable with Aaron White at her house” and asked him to tell Aaron to leave the party.
The best synopsis of this entire series of events I’ve come across so far is the March 6, 2008 article that appeared in The New Yorker Magazine. Here is an excerpt:
“When Dano learned exactly why Jennifer felt uncomfortable around Aaron, she later testified, “he freaked out.” While in an Internet chat room with a couple of other boys, Jennifer told Dano, Aaron had posted a message saying that he wanted to rape her. Obtaining Aaron’s cell-phone number from Michael Longo, Dano touched off what became a series of heated calls involving several people at the party. Dano wanted to confront Aaron immediately. It didn’t matter that Aaron denied having posted the message. It didn’t matter that the posting had taken place nine months before and that Jennifer’s real older brother, Craig, had actually forgotten about it. In court many months later, Jennifer Martin was asked if she’d eventually learned that the offending message had not, in fact, been sent by Aaron—it had grown out of something said on a MySpace account set up in Aaron’s name as a prank—and she answered in the affirmative. That didn’t matter, either, because by then it was much too late. ”
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/03/080303fa_fact_trillin?currentPage=all
Based on all of the facts, I again agree with judge Barbara Kahn’s decision in all of this. Had Michael Longo not created a fake webpage in which he made threats against Jennifer Martin and had Jennifer Martin not waited until 9 months later to still claim she was threatened by some phony messages that she later testified that she knew Aaron did not send, this would not have incited Dano to go over to the White’s home that night.
These two are just as culpable in Dano’s death as John White was. There is also the fact that Dano was drunk at the Martin’s home and based on this information coupled by the now ‘stale myspace hoax’, one has to wonder did Jennifer, deliberately tell Dano this story while he was drunk to get him riled up as yet another prank and see how far he would go in anger, to defend her honor?
The fact that the Cicciaro’s do not seem to hold accountable either the Martins (for serving the alcohol to their underaged son, and implying that a 9 month old fake threat received via myspace was still a threat) and Michael Longo for creating the fake myspace page, shows in my opinion that they are only willing to hold someone black responsible for their son’s death.
Granted, John White pulled the trigger, but again as the judge explained in her ruling, these were certainly mitigating circumstances that had the NOT happened, their son more than likely never would have shown up at the White’s home that night in the first place, and as a result, those individuals, as well as the ones who drove Dano to the White’s home that night are just as responsible as John White is for Dano’s death.