By JOSEPH KELLARD
"His number one priority was his family, and he had a strong bond with his grandparents on his father's side," Kathy said Tuesday, a week after a Bayshore man, Mark Orlando, 34, was sentenced for 25 years to life for her son's murder. "He was very good with elderly people in general."
At the Aug. 18 sentencing, Kathy, a teacher's assistant in the Long Beach School District, asked Nassau County Judge David Sullivan to give the maximum penalty to Orlando, who was convicted of second-degree murder on June 15. "Mark Orlando is a devil and my son was an angel," Kathy told the court. "My family will never be the same, but we will go on for each other because our love is never-ending."
Orlando and Herve Jeannot, 23, of Deer Park, were arrested and charged with shooting Calabrese on Broadway in Island Park on Dec. 3, after police said the Long Beach man had agreed to meet with Orlando to collect $17,000 in sports-related gambling debts that he owed Calabrese.
Prosecutors said Orlando lured Calabrese to a quiet area behind a row of stores on Broadway under the pretense that he was going to pay him, and that Jeannot came out from hiding, shot Calabrese in the head and fled.
During the trial, which began June 3, Orlando's attorney, Dennis Lemke of Mineola, argued that reasonable doubt existed about Orlando's motives. Lemke claimed that his client initially made money with Calabrese, that Orlando was unaware that Jeannot planned to shoot Calabrese, and that Orlando didn't call the police about the murder because Jeannot had threatened to kill him and his wife if he revealed the crime.
At the sentencing, Orlando maintained his innocence, and said he planned to appeal the verdict. Lemke did not return a phone call to comment on the sentencing.
Jeannot is scheduled to be tried for first-degree murder Sept. 6, and faces life without parole if convicted.
"I was very happy with the outcome," Kathy said. "We got what we wanted. I think the judge was very fair."
In her written statement, which she read to the court, Kathy said, "I don't care how much [Orlando] suffers, it will never compare to the never-ending suffering my family will have forever."
She said that her son was supposed to take a police test to become an officer the day after he was murdered, and hoped to follow in the footsteps of his father, Robert, a retired officer with the Long Beach Police Department.
Calabrese, 24, was Kathy and Robert's eldest son, brother to Gina Cuenza, 27, Chris, 22, and Nick, 19. In the courtroom, calling his brother the best sibling anyone could ever ask for, Nick said, "I am everything today because of my brother, Bobby, and I thank him for that with all my heart."
Calabrese attended Kellenberg Memorial High School in Uniondale, where he was a standout wrestler who captured the state Catholic High School Athletic Association's 125-pound championship in 1997. He transferred to Long Beach High and graduated in 1998, throwing himself into the business world, his mother said.
He worked a series of jobs. Strikingly handsome, he landed modeling jobs and a few bit parts in television commercials, but then decided to give the insurance industry a try. At the time of his death, he was an insurance broker in Garden City. Calabrese was living in a separate apartment in his childhood home and had dated a Queens girl, Michelle Vicari, for six years.
Kathy described her son as a regular boy who grew up on East Harrison Street in Long Beach, playing football and baseball, and as someone whose friendly and generous nature stood out. "Everybody liked Bobby," she said. "I can't think of anyone who didn't like him, just because he was so nice to people. He just had a real good heart and wanted to help people."
She noted how her son would shovel snow for his elders on their street, in particular a blind man who lived across from the Calabreses, and that this generosity extended into adulthood. "There was an elderly woman that he had done a mortgage closing for," Kathy recalled, "and he used to take her grocery shopping here and there."
Robert's sister, Gina, also told the court about her brother's gentle side, remembering how he would save the lives of birds with broken wings and make shelters for homeless dogs. "Not only did he save countless birds and dogs, the kid could never even kill a fly in the house," she noted. "He would simply take a cup, cover the fly and let it out to be free."
Robert's brother Chris described to Judge Sullivan the horror he felt on learning of the murder, and told of the "hell" he and his family were experiencing. He said that his older brother was his idol, and that he "was the most respectful, beautiful kid you would ever want to meet, and that's what he taught us to be." In the end, Chris pleaded with the judge to put Orlando away "so he can never have a chance to destroy a family again."
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