This is the woman whose one year-old son triggered a custody argument that is said to have culminated in the toddler's bodybuilder dad shoot his parents at their Long Island mansion on Christmas Day.
Klarisa Perez saw her hulking weightlifter beau, Dino Tomassetti Jr, become unhinged over the holiday weekend when his parents Rocco Tomassetti, 65, and Vencenza Tomasetti, 64, tried to stop him from leaving with the infant boy, who was also in the room, according to Nassau County police.
She was pictured getting into her car earlier this week, and has yet to comment on the disturbing domestic violence incident. Tomasetti Jr's lawyer says his client and Perez were in a relationship at the time of the shooting.
Brooklyn-based Tomassetti Jr became enraged in the family's $3.2 million 8,751 square-foot Hewlett Harbor mansion and pulled a .22 pistol on his mother first, shooting her in the left temple, police said.
He then trained the weapon on his dad, who he shot in the wrist and back, and, when is bullets were spent, pistol whipped the patriarch, it is alleged.
'He became involved in a domestic dispute with his parents who were caring for the one-year-old, during that argument it obviously escalated,' Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said during a Wednesday morning press conference.
The elder Tomassetti, a mob-linked contractor who helped build One World Trade Center and the Goldman Sachs headquarters in Manhattan, and his wife were treated and released from the hospital earlier this week.
The shooting stunned the exclusive South Shore community, which is in the 95th percentile for public safety.
Tomassetti Jr., 29, was arraigned Wednesday afternoon on two counts of attempted murder. He was placed back in custody directly after the hearing on Long Island and no bail has been set.
The judge issued restraining orders against the bodybuilder, preventing him from contacting or going near his parents, girlfriend or son should he be released, according to his lawyer Marco Laracca told DailyMail.com.
The child is currently with Perez, according to the Nassau police commissioner. Tomassetti Jr. is due back in court on January 5. Laracca said that he would apply for bail around that time.
'At this early juncture, without the appropriate discovery to review, it would not be appropriate to comment at this time,' Laracca said.
Tomassetti Jr., who does not have a permit for a gun, has no prior arrests, according to Ryder.
After the incident last week, the son jumped in his Cadillac Escalade SUV and fled to Mahwah, New Jersey, according to authorities, where he was tracked down via the vehicles GPS and arrested later Christmas day.
Tomassetti was held in the Bergen County Jail on charges of being a fugitive from justice until he waived extradition and was returned to Long Island on Wednesday morning.
The hulking and handcuffed Tomassetti Jr. wearing a hooded sweatshirt, black pants and a surgical mask, said nothing as he was lead away from the New Jersey facility to an awaiting Nassau County police car.
He stayed mum and stared straight ahead as detectives led him through a gauntlet of photographers and reporters peppering him with questions.
Rocco and Vincenza have three children, including twins Rocco and Dino Jr., and daughter Gina, 24.
Rocco Tomassetti owns several construction firms and helped build some of Manhattan's most iconic towers, but his company and the family have been embroiled in several construction-related scandals and reportedly took a bribe from a mob turncoat.
Rocco was also accused of trying to bribe union officials and dumping cement sludge in Newtown Creek. His company Empire Transit Mix was banned from city contracting under former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, according to The New York Times.
Dino works as a personal trainer in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. His social media pages are filled with pictures of him flexing his bulging muscles.
His Instagram page, which was set to private as of Wednesday, was stacked with snaps of him lifting weights and occasionally traveling to more exotic parts of the world such as Paris and the Caribbean.
In one photo, he's posing in a car, showing off a pricey Breitling watch. In another post, he boasts about his 240-pound physique.
He writes that he is able to deadlift 725 pounds, squat 625 pounds and bench press 550 pounds.
Dino's grandfather, Dino Tomassetti Sr., is a legend in New York City, both for what he accomplished as a first-generation immigrant and for the scandals that he became embroiled in.
He owned construction company Laquila Group and had been linked by the feds to organized crime.
A 2006 New York Times profile detailed how Dino Sr. was once indicted for allegedly illegally making thousands of dollars in illegal payoffs to union brass over the span of a decade. The elder Dino denied the allegations.
But then in 1997 both Rocco and Dino Sr. were arrested for allegedly operating an illegal waste site next to their company's Brooklyn headquarters, the New York Times reported. That year, the company pleaded guilty to filing fake documents related to a project at Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens.
'Laquila, which had a $2.5 million contract to build concrete decking for a new wing at the hospital, had secretly and illegally subcontracted the work to a second company for $1.4 million, enabling Laquila to collect a $1 million profit,' the Times reported. 'The scheme came to light after Laquila failed to pay the second company.'
In the same article, the outlet reported that the company was indicted for racketeering in 1987 for allegedly bribing local officials to let them illegally dump construction waste in New Jersey. The scheme was allegedly organized by a member of the Gambino crime family.
But the charges were dropped after Laquila agreed to pay a $25,000 fine.
In 2006, a scathing New York City Sanitation Department report rejected an application by Rocco and Dino Sr. to operate a waste business in the city, calling the pair 'unworthy' of obtaining a registration.
The request was denied because the applicants lacked 'good character, honesty, and integrity,' the report said.
Comments
Leave a Comment