The Associated Press
NEW YORK
The actor accused in the slaying of an off-duty New York City police officer says in a jailhouse interview that he wept while reading a newspaper story about the dead man’s funeral and wants to apologize to the victim’s family.
“When I saw the picture of his father, it brought tears to my eyes because he looked like one of those old-fashioned men _ kind of like my father,” Lillo Brancato Jr. told the New York Post in Thursday editions. “I also thought that could have been my father going to my funeral.”
Brancato, 29, who has played a mob wannabe in the television series Sopranos, is charged with murder in the shooting death of Daniel Enchautegui, who was fatally wounded in a Dec. 10 gunfight. Enchautegui was shot after he heard Brancato and another man, Steven Aremento, breaking into a basement apartment in the Bronx, authorities said.
Brancato make his acting debut opposite Robert De Niro in the film “A Bronx Tale.”
Brancato made the sign of the cross every time he mentioned Enchautegui’s name during the 40-minute interview at the New York prison Rikers Island. And he offered an apology to the officer’s family.
“If I had the chance, I would want to meet his family and look them in the face and tell then how sorry I feel about what happened,” Brancato said.
Brancato insisted that he was unaware Armento was carrying a weapon when they left a Bronx strip club to break into the apartment and steal prescription drugs. Authorities identified Armento, 48, as the gunman in the slaying.
“If I would have known, I wouldn’t have allowed him in my car,” Brancato said. “Imagine, we get pulled over and I get caught with an armed felon in my car. Since I’ve been in the movies, it would have instantly drawn attention.”
According to Brancato, Armento plans to acknowledge that the actor knew nothing about the gun. Brancato said he might take the witness stand at trial to tell the jury “how horrible I feel about my stupidity.”