DiGilio Trial to Resume Monday

Defense Attorney Joseph Tacopina wrapped up his nearly four hour-long summation Friday just before 4 p.m., leading Superior Court Judge Francis Hodgson to adjourn proceedings in the Anthony DiGilio vehicular homicide trial to Monday morning.

The prosecution will sum up its case to jurors then in the trial, where Brick resident DiGilio stands accused of vehicular homicide and assault by vessel charges stemming from a 2008 boating accident on the Metedeconk River.

Tacopina presented an impassioned, fiery summation to jurors, attacking all aspects of the prosecution's case. He mixed sarcasm, humor and sometimes anger to jurors and expressed a sense of bewilderment that DiGilio was even facing charges.

Early in his summation, Tacopina played a video tape of what he said was DiGilio's boat leaving the channel beside the Wharfside Patio Bar the night of the accident with both its bow and stern lights illuminated. (See separate story.)

The prosecution's case against DiGilio largely hinges on whether or not his boat's lights were on the time of the accident, since experts have testified that DiGilio's boat had the right of way when the accident – which killed 49-year-old Essex Fells resident Robert Post and injured several others – occurred. Post was at the helm of his 17-foot Boston Whaler at the time.

The video, taken from a security camera at Fisherman's Supply, a bait and tackle shop on Channel Drive in Point Pleasant Beach, shows a boat with both its bow and stern lights illuminated at 12 a.m., the time DiGilio was said to have left the Wharfside, just a short distance up the channel from the tackle shop.

The defense, in the morning, zeroed in on one witness, Wharfside security guard Eric Axel, who testified that DiGilio's bow light was not on when he left the establishment.

Tacopina said Axel's testimony was not reliable since he only came forward in September 2012 when he was in a class at the Ocean County police academy being taught by Assistant Prosecutor William Heisler, who is one of two prosecutors assigned to the DiGilio case.

"Eric Axel, his story is just so ridiculous, and a little offensive," said Tacopina. "What changed suddenly for him in 2012? Do you think maybe, one week into the academy, he was just trying to show off to the chief prosecutor, so he opened his mouth and put his foot in?"

In earlier testimony, Axel said he thought he would "never end up on the witness stand" after calling out in class that he was there the night DiGilio was at Wharfside.

Tacopina used most of the afternoon attacking the prosecution's contention that DiGilio was operating his boat too fast at the time of the accident.

Indeed, there are no speed limits in the area of the accident, and Tacopina told jurors DiGilio was operating his boat safely on a clear, calm night on the water.

He detailed his expert witnesses' testimony that disagreed with speed estimates provided by the prosecution.

"How are they going to have the nerve to ask you to determine speed?" Tacopina asked jurors, after a New Jersey State Trooper testified during the trial that numerical speed limits on some New Jersey waterways were removed after it was determined that they were difficult, if not impossible, to enforce.

"These numbers are supposed to mean something in reality, not be hypotheticals or guesses," said Tacopina, referring to the prosecution's estimate that DiGilio could have been travelling between 51 and 69 m.p.h. that night. "But they don't mean anything. They're mathematical calculations based on conjecture and assumptions."

"He's innocent, folks," said Tacopina. "He was involved in a tragic accident. When he found out that he didn't hit a log or a buoy, when he found out the next morning from media reports that there was a fatal boat accident the time he was out there … what did he do? The cowardly thing to do would be, 'thank God no one found me.' But immediately, that morning, he called his representatives and called law enforcement."

The trial will resume Monday at 9 a.m.