Pimp found guilty in 2011 homicide of Queens pizzeria owner: DA
A cold case investigation into a vicious Queens murder that occurred 12 years ago was closed Friday with the conviction of a Brooklyn pimp, prosecutors said.
Gerald Griffin, 46, is now facing 25 years to life for killing Brooklyn pizzeria owner Peter Polizzi in 2011, prosecutors said Friday.
A jury convicted Griffin of murder, robbery, burglary, intimidating a witness and other charges on Wednesday following a brief trial in Queens criminal court.
“This cold-blooded killer thought he could get away with murder, but the NYPD tracked him down and we made sure he will go to jail for a long time,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said Friday.
Polizzi was found badly beaten in his Ridgewood apartment on Clover Place by his brother on Sept. 14, 2011. At the time, the brutalized victim was naked and stuffed under a couch.
He was taken to an area hospital, where he died of his injuries three days later, cops said.
At the time of his death, Polizzi’s father, Pietro Polizzi, was in federal prison after being convicted for possession of child pornography.
The senior Polizzi had owned and operated Tony’s Pizzeria in Bushwick and handed over the successful business to his two sons after he was incarcerated.
A federal judge denied Polizzi’s request for a furlough so he could go to his son’s funeral.
Police determined that Peter Polizzi’s apartment had been ransacked during the attack and several items had been taken, including some cash, drugs and a diamond-encrusted watch.
The only clues detectives had to find the killer was a used wine glass and a bloody baseball bat found inside the apartment. A friend of Polizzi’s family also came forward, remembering that he saw two people leave the building on the night of the attack, cops said. One of the two men wore a T-shirt reading “Irving Scrap Metal.”
The investigation laid dormant with no arrests until NYPD Cold Case detectives got the file in 2015. After combing through Polizzi’s cellphone records, investigators managed to locate a young woman, a prostitute, who was with Polizzi on the night of the murder, prosecutors said.
The woman told police that Griffin, her pimp, brought her to the apartment with another man and watched as Griffin fatally beat Polizzi with the baseball bat, then ransacked the home, she said.
DNA and other evidence from the wine glass were linked to the prostitute, which confirmed her story about being inside the apartment, investigators said.
Trolling through Griffin’s social media posts, detectives found a picture of the suspect wearing the diamond-encrusted watch that he had taken from Polizzi’s apartment.
Cops and prosecutors indicted and arrested Griffin, who lives in East New York, Brooklyn, in 2018.
Griffin is expected to be sentenced on June 15, prosecutors said. Attempts to reach Griffin’s attorney, William Martin, were unsuccessful Friday.
