The hard-partying surrogate son of a wealthy Manhattan diamond dealer was quickly convicted Friday of cruelly killing a stranger during a ghoulish night of drugs and violence.
A mix of cheers and sobs filled the Manhattan courtroom when the jury forewoman declared James Rackover was guilty of second-degree murder in the gruesome Nov. 13, 2016, death of Joseph Comunale.
The jury needed barely four hours over two days to convict the 27-year-old Rackover, rejecting the defendant’s claim that a friend of his did the killing. That man and a second defendant still face charges in the savage killing of the former Hofstra hockey player.
Comunale’s parents, along with his sister, broke down sobbing as the verdict came in. His overwrought father, Patsy, later noted the pair of suspects yet to be tried.
“I can’t wait to get these two other sons of b—-es to go down just like this a–hole, pardon my language,” said the family patriarch as he fought back tears. “These guys don’t deserve to be on the streets ever again.”
Rackover, who showed little emotion throughout the two-week trial, displayed the same blank expression as his fate was announced. He kept his chin up and stared forward before the jury’s verdict was announced.
“James was stoic — but a guilty verdict is a lot to bear, as it would be for anyone,” said Robert Caliendo, of of Rackover’s lawyers.
The Comunale clan and their two dozen supporters hugged and cried in relief as Rackover was led from the courtroom to await a Dec. 5 sentencing where he faces up to life in prison for murdering Comunale, 26, of Stamford, Conn.
One of the jurors said after the verdict that the grisly nature of the case is keeping him from sleeping.
“I have felt like s–t for three weeks,” the male juror said. “The autopsy photos keep coming back to me. The photos from excavating the crimes scene… I hope I can shake that.”
The male juror had little regard for Rackover himself.
“He came across to me as like an entitled rich white kid from the Upper East Side who was trying to get away with something. In the end we found out, no, it was something much darker than that.
“We still don’t know what the motive is. We probably never will. I’m sure the drug- and alcohol-fueled lifestyle had a role.”
The killer and his victim had never met until they crossed paths nearly two years ago, with Comunale stopping at Rackover’s luxury E. 59th St. apartment with a group of men and women for an after-party when the Manhattan bars closed, officials charged.
The doomed man was steered to the early morning bacchanal by Lawrence Dilione and Max Gemma, two friends of Rackover who met Comunale at a Chelsea club.
Once inside the fourth-floor residence, prosecutors suggested, a fight broke out as the cocaine ran out. Communale was beaten, stabbed and thrown out a window, with his broken body loaded into the trunk of a car for a trip to the Jersey shore. The butchered corpse was placed in a shallow grave, torched and then buried by the defendants, prosecutors charged.
The key prosecution witness was Louis Ruggiero, 24, the son of Fox-5’s “Good Day New York” co-host Rosanna Scotto, with the young man testifying that Rackover confessed to the killing inside an East Side gym.
“I didn’t want a dead body in (my) living room so I slit his throat and I stabbed him,” Ruggerio quoted Rackover as telling him. “We wrapped him up in comforters and threw his body out the window.”
The pair met through Scotto, 60, who is good friends with celebrity jeweler Jeffrey Rackover, 58. The wealthy older man financed the younger Rackover’s high-flying lifestyle.
Prosecutors argued the Rackovers were companions “masquerading” publicly as father and son. James Rackover took his last name as an adult to further the con, authorities said.
Dilione, identified as the killer by Rackover’s lawyer, still faces his own murder trial in the death. Gemma is charged with misleading investigators and assisting in the clean-up effort. Rackover claimed he did nothing beyond helping to move the body.
“These are three animals,” said Patsy Comunale before the verdict. “Euthanizing them is probably what they need. There’s no reason that they should be mingling in a free society.”
All three defendants immediately began pointing fingers at the other once the burned body was recovered. Assistant District Attorney Antoinette Carter, in her summation Thursday, argued that Rackover and Dilione were partners in the heinous crime.
“All of the evidence supports the conclusion that they did everything together,” she told the jury.
