Daily Kennebec journal., 1911-04-22
Poses Before Mortified Audience
Then Falls in Dead Faint.
Tumu|t Follows, with Sitting
Suspended by Pres. Bianchi
Others Charged with Having Been
In Vicinity Of Murder, on Stand.

Niter5o, Italy, April 21.-Of all the
methods adopted by the Camorrist
prisoners to excite sympathy or incite
\ riot, none surpassed in novelty and
effectiveness that of Gaetano Esposito,
who at the end of Il mad harangue to-
day. tore a glass eye from his head
and hurting it at the feet of the presid
ing judge. stampeded the court room.
Then he fell in faint and President
Bianchi suspended the sitting.
According to the state Esposito, who
is known as usurer, succeeded En-
rico Alfano as the head of the Camor-
ra. when Alfano fled to the United
States, there to fall into the hands of
Lieut.. Petrosno. He is charged with
having been one of those who met at
Baenoli and condemned Gennaro Gu
occolo to death for treachery. Esposito
is not pleasing man to look upon at
best. and his knife-scarrod face is
made less inviting by the glass substi-
tute for an eye lost in his youth.
The prisoner attempted to prove an
alibi SO far as the meeting at Bagnoli
was concerned At that time he was
travelling. ne said, between Milan and
Rome He told of his wanderings prior
Y
Ind gra dually wrought himself up to
q frenzy. He concluded in substance
as follows:
"It is true that l concealed myself at
the time when l learned that | was to
be arrested. 1 was suffering as l am
even now, from heart disease. In my
boyhood | lost one eye. l feared that
/ would die in prison from the malady
ot, va1 nY VII OF
would be even worse, that l would lose
my other eye"
Here the prisoner sobbed violently,
his face in his hands. All attention
was on the man, when suddenly he
raised his head and with deft move
ment of the hand, released the sight
less organ and throwing it on the floor
before the judges bench, barred his
disfigured face to the Mortified specta-
tors.
Thus for a few seconds he posed.
and then with a choking cry dropped
to the floor in faint.
BY this time the nerves of all in the
room were on edge, and as Esposito
collapsed, a tumult was raised. From
the steel cages the prisoners shouted,
cried and cursed.
One of the jurymen who is a ply
sician went to the assistance of Es-
posito and President Bianchi declared
the sitting suspended.
When the sitting was resumed others
charged with having been in Bagnoli
when the death sentence was passed
upon Cuoccolo We're heard. Antonio
Di Domizio said that he did not ask
acquittal because of condemnation in
asmuch as he had already been in
prison longer than he could now be
sentenced to serve. He desired ae-
quittal, he said. only to vindicate his
honor, especially in the interest of his
family which is composed of respect
able people.
Giovanni Bartolozzi, who has the
eyes of a lunatic and is an epileptic
next was heard. He cynically admitted
that he Is a criminal and has spent his
life between prisons and lunatic asy-
lums. He had been forced to live out
side prison an aggregate of two years,
he said.
Bartolozzi said he had no reason to
hate Cuoccolo.
Giuseppe Minichiello violently at
tackled the Carabineers calling their
officers the real heads of the Camorra.
Giuseppe Chirico declared he was in
the United States when the murder of
Cuoccolo was committed, engaged on
the docks unloading British steamers.
Guanni Morelli, the last of the defend
ents to testify today, said that Abb
batemaggio had mistaken some one
else for him.