Stay-at-home dad convicted of beating 7-month-old son appealing in federal court (Brentwood, New Hampshire)

Stay-at-home dad GURRIE FANDOZZI was convicted 1st-degree assault in the beating of his 7-month-old son, who suffered MULTIPLE fractures. But now Daddy's appealing in federal court. Given that he is an unemployed lawyer who was living off his wife at the time of the baby's injuries, I'm not surprised in the least. How else is he going to keep busy?

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Freedom+for+dad+jailed+in+son's+abuse%3F&articleId=5c2ef9d1-34a6-4051-a508-6419683b3258

Freedom for dad jailed in son's abuse?
By JAMES A. KIMBLE
Union Leader Correspondent
12 hours, 14 minutes ago

BRENTWOOD – A Windham father serving a 15- to 30-year prison sentence for beating his 7-month old son -- and breaking seven bones -- may get a chance to argue for his freedom in federal court.

Gurrie Fandozzi, 44, has spent 2 1/2 years in state prison for breaking six of his son's ribs and a bone near the child's tailbone.

His conviction in Rockingham County Superior Court was upheld by the state Supreme Court in March.

But a federal judge has cleared the way for Fandozzi to pursue overturning his prison sentence in U.S. District Court.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Landya McCafferty ruled in a Dec. 13 order that Fandozzi has demonstrated that he has exhausted all possible appeals in the state courts.

Defense lawyer Mark Sisti is arguing that Fandozzi's constitutional right to a fair trial was violated after a jury returned a split verdict.

A Rockingham County jury found Fandozzi guilty of seven counts of first-degree assault.

He was found not guilty of breaking another 19 bones, which included the child's arms, legs, skull and parts of his back.

Fandozzi, a former Connecticut lawyer, was a stay-at-home father while his wife worked as a lawyer with the Social Security Administration in Boston.

A team of Boston doctors specializing in child trauma concluded the injuries were inflicted sometime between June 2006 and Aug. 2, 2006.

The child has since made a full recovery.

After Fandozzi's conviction, Superior Court Judge Tina Nadeau held a closed-door hearing to question one juror about the verdict.

She sentenced Fandozzi in June 2008.

Sisti argues in court papers that Nadeau did not go far enough in questioning the juror about how he came away convicting Fandozzi on some of the charges and finding him not guilty on the others.

Court documents say that the juror questioned whether Fandozzi's wife, who was never charged and faced no criminal wrongdoing in the case, could have been responsible for the child's injuries.

A panel of nine women and four men, which included an alternate, sat for the case.

On Wednesday, Assistant County Attorney Elizabeth Woodcock filed court papers saying Nadeau properly weighed all of Fandozzi's arguments before sentencing him.

Woodcock wrote that Fandozzi should not qualify for any relief in federal court given the facts of the case.

However, state prosecutors are working on a more detailed argument to toss the case out of federal court, which will be submitted within the next 60 days.

Woodcock is asking that McCafferty agree with the state's argument to keep Fandozzi in prison without holding a hearing on the matter.

If Fandozzi wins his case in federal court, it means his conviction would be reversed and he would be immediately freed from prison. County prosecutors would then have to decide whether to retry him.