Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

Co-Defendant Blames James Rackover for Sutton Place Murder

By Noah Hurowitz | January 18, 2017 10:11am
 Lawrence Dilione, left, and James Rackover, right, both are accused of burying Joseph Comunale's body in a shallow grave on the Jersey Shore.
Lawrence Dilione, left, and James Rackover, right, both are accused of burying Joseph Comunale's body in a shallow grave on the Jersey Shore.
View Full Caption
DNAinfo/Kathleen Culliton

SUTTON PLACE — A man suspected of killing a Hofstra graduate after a coke-fueled all-night party put the blame on his co-defendant within days of his arrest, according to newly filed court documents.

Lawrence Dilione, who was arrested with James Rackover in November and charged in connection to the brutal stabbing death of Joseph Comunale, told police that Rackover stabbed Comunale after a brief fight in the early-morning hours of Nov. 13, according to court records.

“I didn’t kill Joe, it was James,” Dilione told detectives on Nov. 17, a day and a half after his arrest Nov. 15.

“All I did was punch him, then James said he didn't want to go to jail and then James stabbed him.”

Comunale disappeared after a night of clubbing that turned into a party at Rackover’s Sutton Place apartment where the group, which included three unnamed women, drank and did cocaine until about 7 a.m., according to Dilione and investigators.

The women were spotted on security camera leaving at about 7 a.m. and another man, Max Gemma, left at about 8 am, but Comunale was never seen alive again.

He was reported missing that day and police found his body — stabbed 15 times and partially burnt — buried in a shallow grave behind a flower shop in Oceanport, New Jersey, near Dilione’s father’s home.

Dilione led police to the body, telling them where he and Rackover had buried Comunale and pointing out its location on Google Maps, according to police.

Dilione’s accusations against Rackover emerged in documents filed by Mark Bederow, a lawyer for Gemma who was arrested weeks after the incident and charged with hindering prosecution.

According to prosecutors, Gemma was there the night of the party and later changed his clothes in an attempt to destroy evidence.

But according to prosecutors, Dilione told investigators within hours of his Nov. 15 arrest that Gemma was not involved in the murder.

“Max had nothing to do with it,” Dilione said, according to a statement given to Bederow by Assistant District Attorney Antoinette Carter and filed by Bederow on Tuesday.

But Dilione’s lawyer, Michael Pappa, is already fighting to suppress the statements, which he said were made to police well after Dilione had asked for a lawyer and after his original lawyer had tried to make contact with Dilione.

“Right now our primary focus is the inadmissability of the case,” he said.

“As far as I’m concerned, the content of the statements speaks for itself, and that’s all I’m going to say about that.”

Dilione and Gemma are both free on bail, but Rackover remains locked up on $300,000 bond.

Rackover was initially reported to be the son of celebrity jeweler Jeffrey Rackover, whose clients include President-elect Donald Trump and his wife Melania, but in the days and weeks following the younger Rackover’s arrest, their ties became less clear.

James Rackover, originally named James Beaudoin, had appeared in the jeweler’s life several years prior and changed his name in an effort to get a fresh start, according to friends of the jeweler and court documents.

The elder Rackover told some friends that James had appeared on his doorstep saying he was the son of a woman with whom Rackover had an affair years ago in Florida, but other friends of the jeweler said they were told they had met at a gym.

Regardless, Jeffrey Rackover appeared to dote on the younger man, lavishing him with clothes, vacations, a job and his apartment at 419 E. 59th St.

But according to some friends of Jeffrey Rackover, he has been in anguish over the charges and Rackover’s lawyer, Maurice Sercarz, said the current bail is beyond the means of Rackover’s mother, who he said intends to mortgage her Florida home.

Sercarz did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.