Christopher Gregor guilty of aggravated manslaughter in death of son Corey Micciolo

TOMS RIVER - An Ocean County jury today found Christopher Gregor guilty of aggravated manslaughter in the death of his 6-year-old son, Corey Micciolo, rejecting a more serious charge of murder.

The jury also found Gregor, 31, of Barnegat, guilty of endangering the welfare of a child, related to an incident, captured on surveillance video, of him increasing the speed of a treadmill on which Corey was running, causing the child to repeatedly fall off the machine.

While the jury rejected the murder charge, it convicted the defendant of the lesser charge of aggravated manslaughter, which carries a prison term of 10 to 30 years. If Gregor had been convicted of murder, he would have faced 30 years to life in prison.

Superior Court Judge Guy P. Ryan scheduled Gregor's sentencing for Aug. 2.

Gregor shook his head slightly when the forewoman announced he was guilty in his child's death.

Breanna Micciolo, Corey's mother, was crying when she heard the verdict.

Outside the courtroom, she and family members hugged each other and Assistant Ocean County Prosecutors Christine Lento and Jamie Schron, who tried the case.

"We're happy with the verdict and we thank the prosecutor's office,'' a clearly emotional Micciolo said outside the courthouse.

Defense attorney Mario Gallucci, who defended Gregor along with co-counsel Andrea Ferrante, described his client's reaction to the verdict to a corps of reporters assembled outside the courthouse, including representatives of Court TV, which broadcasted the entirety of the four-week trial.

"He was not surprised,'' Gallucci said of Gregor. "He knows it was just the first step in a long battle.''

When asked if his client plans to appeal the jury's verdict, Gallucci responded, "Absolutely.''

Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer issued a prepared statement following the verdict, saying, "At long last, justice for Corey has been accomplished.''

His comment referenced a Facebook page - "Justice for Corey'' - established after the boy's death but before Gregor was charged with any crimes.

"Christopher Gregor must live the rest of his life with the knowledge that he, and he alone, was responsible for the death of his one and only son,'' Billhimer said in the statement. "While nothing can bring this precious child back to his family, we hope that today's jury verdict offers some semblance of peace and closure for those who knew and loved Corey.''

The jury's verdict was announced about 1:20 p.m., after a little more than five hours of deliberations over two days. The jury forewoman appeared to be crying, as did one of the alternate jurors.

It follows a trial that featured the gut-wrenching surveillance video of Gregor repeatedly increasing the speed and incline on a treadmill on which Corey was running, causing the child to fall off the machine six times.

The video, from the gym at Gregor's apartment complex, captured the event on March 20, 2021, almost two weeks before Corey's death on April 2, 2021. Detectives discovered the video while investigating the child's death.

Gregor initially was charged only with child endangerment, relating to the treadmill incident.

He wasn't charged with Corey's murder until almost a year after the boy died, because the medical examiner, Dr. Dante Ragasa, initially ruled the manner of death to be undetermined. Ragasa amended the autopsy report and listed the death as a homicide after another forensic pathologist, Dr. Thomas Andrew, former chief medical examiner for New Hampshire, reviewed Ragasa's report.

Ragasa was not called to testify at the trial, but Andrew, testifying for the prosecution, told the jury Corey died as a result of blunt force injuries to his chest and lacerations to his heart and liver.

The defense argued that Corey died of natural causes. Renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden, former chief medical examiner for New York City and host of the HBO series "Autopsy,'' testified for the defense and told the jury there was a more than 50 percent chance that Corey died as a result of pneumonia or some other unexplained natural cause.

However, the prosecution called Dr. Anat Feingold, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Cooper University Medical Center in Camden, who testified that Corey had no signs of pneumonia or other infections in his body. She said she reached that conclusion to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty after reviewing the boy's medical records and autopsy report.

Corey died a little more than an hour after Gregor brought him to the emergency room at Southern Ocean Medical Center in Stafford Township, where he went into cardiac arrest twice.

Eight hours earlier, Corey's mother returned the boy to his father after having visitation with him. The previous day, she brought him to his pediatrician as well as Community Medical Center in Toms River and Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune to be evaluated for child abuse. The physicians who examined Corey found nothing wrong with him except for some bruises on his body.

The prosecution and defense both said the treadmill incident had nothing to do with Corey's death.

Lento argued in her summation that Gregor inflicted the blunt-force injuries on his son the day of his death to punish him because the boy's mother was 14 hours late bringing the child home to him.

Baden, meanwhile, testified Corey's blunt-force injuries could have been caused by the aggressive cardiopulmonary resuscitation performed on him in the emergency room for 49 minutes in an attempt to save his life.

Within 20 minutes of Corey's death, Gregor left the medical center and started driving through the night, ending up in Arkansas, near the Texas state line, where he eventually turned around to head home, at the behest of his parents. Gallucci said Gregor left because he was grieving and wanted to be alone, but prosecutors suggested he was trying to flee because he knew what he had done to Corey.

Testimony at the trial revealed that Gregor, a teacher, was unaware of his son's existence until he was five. That's when Corey's maternal grandmother telephoned Gregor's father seeking help supporting the child. A paternity test revealed Gregor was Corey's father. Gregor and his parents later got custody of him.

Testimony also indicated that Breanna Micciolo had lost custody of Corey because of a drug addiction.

She testified she got clean because she was trying to regain custody of Corey. She said she feared for his life when she filed an emergency application for custody, which was rejected, and then took him to doctors to be evaluated for child abuse.

Breanna Micciolo also testified that about five months after Corey's death, she vandalized the Monroe home of Gregor's parents by throwing dead fish, ham hocks and goose egg stones at it.

Gregor opted not to testify.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Chris Gregor trial: Jury reaches decision in death of Corey Micciolo