Individual Details
Luigi Vincenzo SEDITA
(13 Dec 1942 - 27 Feb 2004)
Fired Transit Worker Is Held In Killing of 2 Ex-Supervisors
By Michael Brick
The New York Times
Feb. 29, 2004
A former transit worker was arrested yesterday and charged in the fatal shootings of two of his supervisors on Friday morning at a railyard in Brooklyn.
Darryl Dinkins, 39, of Apt. 2F, 1720 Bedford Avenue in Crown Heights, was charged with murder. He made an unsuccessful suicide attempt while in police custody.
Mr. Dinkins, a train car cleaner, was a subject of disciplinary reports written by each of the victims and was fired in October after working for New York City Transit for four years. He quickly became the focus of the investigation after the bodies of the victims, Luigi Sedita of Staten Island and Clives Patterson of Far Rockaway, were found early Friday morning by a security guard. Each had been shot twice, and they lay face down in a trailer on the grounds of the railyard, which is patrolled by security guards and surrounded by gates topped with barbed wire.
A transit official said reports of animosity between Mr. Dinkins and his managers date to July, when Mr. Sedita filed a written disciplinary report against Mr. Dinkins, who was his subordinate.
On Sept. 12, Mr. Sedita found Mr. Dinkins playing dominoes during a shift and ordered him back to work, the transit official said. Mr. Dinkins, he said, refused and later that morning, blocked Mr. Sedita's vehicle, called him names and spit at him. Mr. Sedita filed a police complaint, the transit official said, and recommended that Mr. Dinkins be fired.
Mr. Dinkins was suspended on Sept. 22. At a hearing on Oct. 15, Mr. Sedita testified that he and Mr. Dinkins disliked each other. Mr. Dinkins, who is black, said that his dispute with his supervisor, who is white, was based on racial discrimination. A hearing officer found that there were grounds to dismiss Mr. Dinkins, and he was fired on Oct. 24, the transit official said. Mr. Patterson had also written disciplinary reports against Mr. Dinkins, according to the official.
The police questioned about 50 overnight workers on Friday morning and by midday Friday had narrowed their investigation to focus on Mr. Dinkins. Detectives at one point said they expected to extract a quick confession, but the questioning continued into Friday evening, with the police still unwilling to characterize Mr. Dinkins as a suspect.
Mr. Dinkins was placed under arrest early yesterday and held in a cell at the 60th Precinct station house in Coney Island, the police said. He tried to hang himself with his shirt, but a police officer intervened, and Mr. Dinkins was taken to Coney Island Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, the police said.
Mr. Dinkins was said to be in good condition, and the cable television station New York 1 broadcast footage of him walking to the ambulance, escorted by police officers
Calls to Mr. Dinkins' relatives were not immediately returned. A police officer assigned outside his apartment said that no one was home and stopped a reporter from knocking on the door. Neighbors on his floor would not discuss Mr. Dinkins.
JUSTICE GETS DERAILED; KIN’S PAIN IN SLAY ACQUITTAL
By Philip Recchia
New York Post
October 15, 2006
Just before dawn on Feb. 27, 2004, five shots rang out in the middle of a Coney Island rail yard, killing Luigi Sedita and Clives Patterson in cold blood.
The two MTA supervisors were seated in their trailer office on the vast, desolate lot at the time.
There were no signs of a struggle and both had their wallets on them when the bodies were found.
There were no witnesses to the slayings. No one apparently heard the 9 mm bullets being discharged into the crisp winter air; if they did, 911 was never called.
And no murder weapon was ever found.
But there was a suspect: Darryl Dinkins, a disgruntled former subway train cleaner who’d been fired three months earlier after being caught playing dominoes on the job and spitting at his boss Sedita.
Sedita had written Dinkins up for disciplinary infractions several times earlier.
So within hours of the homicides, cops were at Dinkins’ housing-project door in Brooklyn.
Detectives would later testify that Dinkins, then 40, confessed to the crime-though not before changing his story.
He first said he’d gone home after a night of guzzling booze and snorting cocaine. But after hours of questioning, that account included shooting his supervisors.
Dinkins was arrested the next day and jailed without bail. A month later, on April 29, 2004, he was charged with first- and second-degree murder and related weapons counts.
Four days ago, a Brooklyn jury pronounced Dinkins not guilty, leaving two brutal murders unsolved.
Now the widow of one victim – “devastated” by what she calls a “terrible injustice” – is asking, What happened?
Maria Sedita says Dinkins’ swift acquittal “was an absolute shock” to her family in light of the wealth of circumstantial evidence against him – and the fact that no other suspect has ever been identified.
“We’re so devastated. We haven’t even had time to think about what to do next,” she said.
Maria Sedita, 62, also slammed Assistant DA Mark Hale for “not telling us anything” about the case since Dinkins’ acquittal.
Dinkins’ confession allegedly laid out how the deadly mixture of alcohol, drugs and fury led him to confront Sedita, 61, and Patterson, 46.
“You f – – – d me,” Dinkins told Sedita, according to an unsigned statement. “How can you live with yourself?”
Sedita shot back with more profanity, and Dinkins allegedly told detectives, “It got dark, like the lights went out.”
“He said he was bouncing, he was sweating and he was mad,” said Detective James McCafferty.
Dinkins’ defense team contended that the oral confession – which he neither wrote nor signed – was fabricated by overzealous detectives.
But the bullets that killed Sedita, 61, and Patterson, 46, were matched to shells found near Dinkins’ apartment four years earlier following an unrelated incident.
“Justice has not been served,” said Maria Sedita.
TRIAL AND ERROR
Nov. 4, 2003: Subway cleaner Darryl Dinkins fired for playing dominoes on the job and spitting at supervisor Luigi Sedita (pictured with wife Maria)
Feb. 27, 2004: At around 5 a.m., Sedita, 61, and another MTA supervisor, Clives Patterson, 46, were shot to death in their Brooklyn office
Feb. 28, 2004: Dinkins arrested for slayings; jailed without bail
April 29, 2004: Dinkins arraigned; charged with murder and weapons possession
Sept. 25, 2006: Two-week trial begins in Brooklyn
Oct. 11, 2006: Dinkins acquitted on all charges
Ex-worker sues city for TA slay arrest
By JOHN MARZULLI
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
FEB 10, 2007
An ex-train cleaner acquitted last year of murdering his former boss and another Transit Authority supervisor in the Coney Island railyard has filed a $30 million lawsuit against the city.
Darryl Dinkins says he was falsely arrested and imprisoned for nearly three years before he was found not guilty by a Brooklyn jury of fatally shooting transit supervisors Luigi Sedita and Clive Patterson in February 2004.
The suit accuses NYPD detectives of fabricating a confession to the killings and attributing it to him.
Dinkins had been disciplined in the past by the victims, including an incident where he cursed and spat at Sedita, and he had been fired by the Transit Authority four months before the double homicide.
According to the complaint filed in Brooklyn Federal Court, Dinkins contends that Detectives James McCaffery and Michael Hopkins violated his constitutional rights by "creating a fictitious confession" that resulted in first-degree murder charges.
Dinkins refused to sign the confession, and refused to be videotaped. There was no physical evidence linking him to the crime scene. Authorities had said he tried to kill himself shortly after his arrest.
Dinkins, 42, is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and has been unable to find work since his acquittal last October after a two-week trial, his lawyer, Andrew Plasse, said.
"He sustained severe psychological trauma after 32 months in jail," Plasse said. "The arrest has devastated his life; he no longer has his apartment, vehicle, job or source of income except for public assistance. He lives with his mother."
The suit seeks damages for "mental distress, severe humiliation and embarrassment."
Assistant City Corporation Counsel Sumit Sid said in a statement: "Due to pending litigation, we cannot discuss the case further."
Sedita's widow also declined to comment yesterday.
By Michael Brick
The New York Times
Feb. 29, 2004
A former transit worker was arrested yesterday and charged in the fatal shootings of two of his supervisors on Friday morning at a railyard in Brooklyn.
Darryl Dinkins, 39, of Apt. 2F, 1720 Bedford Avenue in Crown Heights, was charged with murder. He made an unsuccessful suicide attempt while in police custody.
Mr. Dinkins, a train car cleaner, was a subject of disciplinary reports written by each of the victims and was fired in October after working for New York City Transit for four years. He quickly became the focus of the investigation after the bodies of the victims, Luigi Sedita of Staten Island and Clives Patterson of Far Rockaway, were found early Friday morning by a security guard. Each had been shot twice, and they lay face down in a trailer on the grounds of the railyard, which is patrolled by security guards and surrounded by gates topped with barbed wire.
A transit official said reports of animosity between Mr. Dinkins and his managers date to July, when Mr. Sedita filed a written disciplinary report against Mr. Dinkins, who was his subordinate.
On Sept. 12, Mr. Sedita found Mr. Dinkins playing dominoes during a shift and ordered him back to work, the transit official said. Mr. Dinkins, he said, refused and later that morning, blocked Mr. Sedita's vehicle, called him names and spit at him. Mr. Sedita filed a police complaint, the transit official said, and recommended that Mr. Dinkins be fired.
Mr. Dinkins was suspended on Sept. 22. At a hearing on Oct. 15, Mr. Sedita testified that he and Mr. Dinkins disliked each other. Mr. Dinkins, who is black, said that his dispute with his supervisor, who is white, was based on racial discrimination. A hearing officer found that there were grounds to dismiss Mr. Dinkins, and he was fired on Oct. 24, the transit official said. Mr. Patterson had also written disciplinary reports against Mr. Dinkins, according to the official.
The police questioned about 50 overnight workers on Friday morning and by midday Friday had narrowed their investigation to focus on Mr. Dinkins. Detectives at one point said they expected to extract a quick confession, but the questioning continued into Friday evening, with the police still unwilling to characterize Mr. Dinkins as a suspect.
Mr. Dinkins was placed under arrest early yesterday and held in a cell at the 60th Precinct station house in Coney Island, the police said. He tried to hang himself with his shirt, but a police officer intervened, and Mr. Dinkins was taken to Coney Island Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, the police said.
Mr. Dinkins was said to be in good condition, and the cable television station New York 1 broadcast footage of him walking to the ambulance, escorted by police officers
Calls to Mr. Dinkins' relatives were not immediately returned. A police officer assigned outside his apartment said that no one was home and stopped a reporter from knocking on the door. Neighbors on his floor would not discuss Mr. Dinkins.
JUSTICE GETS DERAILED; KIN’S PAIN IN SLAY ACQUITTAL
By Philip Recchia
New York Post
October 15, 2006
Just before dawn on Feb. 27, 2004, five shots rang out in the middle of a Coney Island rail yard, killing Luigi Sedita and Clives Patterson in cold blood.
The two MTA supervisors were seated in their trailer office on the vast, desolate lot at the time.
There were no signs of a struggle and both had their wallets on them when the bodies were found.
There were no witnesses to the slayings. No one apparently heard the 9 mm bullets being discharged into the crisp winter air; if they did, 911 was never called.
And no murder weapon was ever found.
But there was a suspect: Darryl Dinkins, a disgruntled former subway train cleaner who’d been fired three months earlier after being caught playing dominoes on the job and spitting at his boss Sedita.
Sedita had written Dinkins up for disciplinary infractions several times earlier.
So within hours of the homicides, cops were at Dinkins’ housing-project door in Brooklyn.
Detectives would later testify that Dinkins, then 40, confessed to the crime-though not before changing his story.
He first said he’d gone home after a night of guzzling booze and snorting cocaine. But after hours of questioning, that account included shooting his supervisors.
Dinkins was arrested the next day and jailed without bail. A month later, on April 29, 2004, he was charged with first- and second-degree murder and related weapons counts.
Four days ago, a Brooklyn jury pronounced Dinkins not guilty, leaving two brutal murders unsolved.
Now the widow of one victim – “devastated” by what she calls a “terrible injustice” – is asking, What happened?
Maria Sedita says Dinkins’ swift acquittal “was an absolute shock” to her family in light of the wealth of circumstantial evidence against him – and the fact that no other suspect has ever been identified.
“We’re so devastated. We haven’t even had time to think about what to do next,” she said.
Maria Sedita, 62, also slammed Assistant DA Mark Hale for “not telling us anything” about the case since Dinkins’ acquittal.
Dinkins’ confession allegedly laid out how the deadly mixture of alcohol, drugs and fury led him to confront Sedita, 61, and Patterson, 46.
“You f – – – d me,” Dinkins told Sedita, according to an unsigned statement. “How can you live with yourself?”
Sedita shot back with more profanity, and Dinkins allegedly told detectives, “It got dark, like the lights went out.”
“He said he was bouncing, he was sweating and he was mad,” said Detective James McCafferty.
Dinkins’ defense team contended that the oral confession – which he neither wrote nor signed – was fabricated by overzealous detectives.
But the bullets that killed Sedita, 61, and Patterson, 46, were matched to shells found near Dinkins’ apartment four years earlier following an unrelated incident.
“Justice has not been served,” said Maria Sedita.
TRIAL AND ERROR
Nov. 4, 2003: Subway cleaner Darryl Dinkins fired for playing dominoes on the job and spitting at supervisor Luigi Sedita (pictured with wife Maria)
Feb. 27, 2004: At around 5 a.m., Sedita, 61, and another MTA supervisor, Clives Patterson, 46, were shot to death in their Brooklyn office
Feb. 28, 2004: Dinkins arrested for slayings; jailed without bail
April 29, 2004: Dinkins arraigned; charged with murder and weapons possession
Sept. 25, 2006: Two-week trial begins in Brooklyn
Oct. 11, 2006: Dinkins acquitted on all charges
Ex-worker sues city for TA slay arrest
By JOHN MARZULLI
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
FEB 10, 2007
An ex-train cleaner acquitted last year of murdering his former boss and another Transit Authority supervisor in the Coney Island railyard has filed a $30 million lawsuit against the city.
Darryl Dinkins says he was falsely arrested and imprisoned for nearly three years before he was found not guilty by a Brooklyn jury of fatally shooting transit supervisors Luigi Sedita and Clive Patterson in February 2004.
The suit accuses NYPD detectives of fabricating a confession to the killings and attributing it to him.
Dinkins had been disciplined in the past by the victims, including an incident where he cursed and spat at Sedita, and he had been fired by the Transit Authority four months before the double homicide.
According to the complaint filed in Brooklyn Federal Court, Dinkins contends that Detectives James McCaffery and Michael Hopkins violated his constitutional rights by "creating a fictitious confession" that resulted in first-degree murder charges.
Dinkins refused to sign the confession, and refused to be videotaped. There was no physical evidence linking him to the crime scene. Authorities had said he tried to kill himself shortly after his arrest.
Dinkins, 42, is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and has been unable to find work since his acquittal last October after a two-week trial, his lawyer, Andrew Plasse, said.
"He sustained severe psychological trauma after 32 months in jail," Plasse said. "The arrest has devastated his life; he no longer has his apartment, vehicle, job or source of income except for public assistance. He lives with his mother."
The suit seeks damages for "mental distress, severe humiliation and embarrassment."
Assistant City Corporation Counsel Sumit Sid said in a statement: "Due to pending litigation, we cannot discuss the case further."
Sedita's widow also declined to comment yesterday.
Events
| Birth | 13 Dec 1942 | Canicattì, Sicily | |||
| Marriage | 8 Oct 1977 | Staten Island, Richmond County, NY - Living | |||
| Death | 27 Feb 2004 | New York, NY |  |
Families
Notes
Death
Luigi V. Sedita of Bay Terrace on February 27, 2004. Beloved husband of Antoinette. Devoted father of Richard and Christopher. Cherished grandfather of Brittany. Loving brother of Margherita Caputo. Funeral from Colonial Funeral Home, 2819 Hylan Blvd., corner of Tysens Lane. Mass Wednesday 9:15 A.M. St. Charles R.C. Church. Interment Moravian Cemetery. Visiting hours Monday and Tuesday 2-4, 7-9 P.M.Published by Staten Island Advance from Feb. 29 to Mar. 2, 2004