Another murder trial for Jeannot

The thought of having to sit through a fifth murder trial and relive the photos, descriptions and medical examiners’ reports about how her brother, Robert Calabrese Jr., lay, shot dead, in an Island Park street is just too disturbing.

But that’s exactly what Gina Calabrese and her Long Beach family will have to do, with jury selection scheduled for Jan. 20 in the retrial of Herve Jeannot, the Deer Park man convicted in 2006 of shooting Calabrese in the head two years earlier in Island Park.

“Just to have to look at his face, knowing that he killed my brother and has no remorse, it’s disturbing,” Calabrese said of Jeannot. “It’s disturbing that he even appealed it, it shows that he has no remorse, that he has no respect for human life.”

Jeannot, 30, has been tried three times for the murder. The first two trials ended with hung juries, and the third with Jeannot’s conviction for first-degree murder and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon in August 2006. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Prosecutors argued that Jeannot conspired with Mark Orlando, 39, of Bayshore, to murder Calabrese, 24, a bet runner who collected money from gamblers. Jeannot pulled the trigger, prosecutors contended. (In the fourth trial arising from the incident, Orlando was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life.)

Last February, however, a state appellate court reversed Jeannot’s conviction and ordered a new trial, ruling that a mistake made by his former defense attorney denied him a fair trial. "While cross-examining one of the investigating officers during the trial, defense counsel offered into evidence a statement implicating the defendant made to the police by another alleged participant in the crime,” the judges wrote in a unanimous decision, referring to a written confession by Orlando. “The defendant contends that, as a result, he was denied the effective assistance of trial counsel.”

Last June, Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice asked the state Court of Appeals to overturn the decision, but her request was denied.