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The widow of a part-time bouncer killed in a Southampton bar last year wept and walked out of a Riverhead courtroom on Thursday afternoon as the song that had been playing in the bar when the fatal fight between her husband and a patron broke out played for the jury hearing the murder case against Anthony Oddone, the man accused of killing the bouncer.
The man who had been the DJ in the Southampton Publick House on the fateful August night in 2008 testified that he had put the song “Calabria” by the techno group Enur on the stereo and then stepped out from behind his corner booth and left the room just as one of the bouncers approached a table with a man and a woman dancing on it. Paul Fallo, the DJ, told the jury he saw the bouncer, Andrew Reister, motion to the people dancing on the table to get down just before he left the room to talk to the bar’s manager to find out how much longer he was to keep the music going. But as the six-minute 30-second song played, unbeknownst to Mr. Fallo, a struggle ensued inside the bar between Mr. Reister and Mr. Oddone, who had been dancing on the low cocktail tables in the bar’s lounge.
Minutes later, as Mr. Fallo was coming back into the barroom, a man rushed past him and out a side door.
“He was moving very quickly, running I would say,” Mr. Fallo, 32, told the jury. “I had seen him dancing on the table.”
As the thumping bass of the dance song played through a computer’s speakers in the courtroom, Assistant District Attorney Denise Merrifield asked Mr. Fallow to identify the points in the song when he left the room and when he returned—to find Mr. Reister unconscious on the floor, with another security man and several patrons huddled around him—giving the jury a timeline for how long Mr. Oddone had choked Mr. Reister before fleeing.
Mr. Fallo said that he left the bar just as the vocal portion of the song began, about one minute in. He said he commonly used the length of the song as an opportunity to escape the confines of the small DJ booth and stretch his legs and get a feel for how much longer the bar would be open. While speaking to the bar’s manager, he said, one of the bartenders came up to them and said a fight had broken out in the bar. Both men headed inside. When Mr. Fallo identified the part of the song that was playing when he re-entered the bar, a technician seated at the computer the music was playing over said the song had been on for four minutes and 18 seconds.
In her opening statements, Ms. Merrifield said that Mr. Oddone had choked Mr. Reister for nearly three minutes, possibly as long as two minutes after the bouncer had stopped resisting and fallen unconscious. The length of time, she said, indicated that Mr. Oddone had been intent on killing Mr. Reister with his chokehold.
Other witnesses in the now three-week-old trial have said that Mr. Oddone wrapped his arms around the bouncer’s neck and that Mr. Reister fell unconscious about 30 to 45 seconds into the struggle, while standing up, and then collapsed to the floor where Mr. Oddone continued to choke him despite attempts by other patrons and bar employees to pull him off. Mr. Oddone’s attorney, Sarita Kedia, has said the death was an accident and that her client was just defending himself.
Mr. Reister’s widow, Stacey, leaned forward in her seat and wept after Mr. Fallo identified the point in the song that he left the bar. She then got up and walked out of the courtroom, wiping away tears. Mr. Reister’s parents had left the courtroom just before the song started.
On cross examination, Ms. Kedia pointed out to Mr. Fallo that in a statement given to attorneys for the Publick House’s insurance company just days after the August 7, 2008 fight, he had said there were two guys and a girl dancing on the table that Mr. Reister approached. Mr. Fallo acknowledged the statement and said that he “misspoke” to the insurance company. Ms. Kedia asked if he had been shown pictures by the prosecution before the trial showing that there was, in fact, just one man and one woman on the table. Mr. Fallo said yes.
Mr. Fallo said that the bar staff typically allowed girls to dance on the cocktail tables but that any time a man got up on one of the tables they were immediately asked to get down.
On Thursday afternoon and Friday morning a young Brazilian man, Clayton Almeda, who had been sitting in a booth in the Publick House that evening testified that he saw Mr. Oddone get up on the table and start dancing next to a girl. He said the bouncer, Mr. Reister, came over to him almost immediately and motioned for him to get off the table.
Mr. Almeda’s recollection of how the fight developed, however, added to the blurriness of the story as seen through the many eyes of the witnesses who have testified thus far. Some have said Mr. Reister pushed Mr. Oddone off the table. Some have said he grabbed his shirt and tried to pull him off.
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Total comments by Sam: 223
Total comments by local: 41
Total comments by wondering: 49
Total comments by nurse: 35
Total comments by Frank Wheeler: 506
Total comments by nurse: 35
Total comments by slamminsammy: 84
Total comments by friend of tony: 8
Total comments by wondering: 49
Total comments by Sam: 223
Please friend just stay up the island and don't come back here.
Total comments by HB 4 Life: 54
Total comments by friend of tony: 8
Total comments by AnonymousSgh: 74
Total comments by wondering: 49
MY prayers go out to Stacy Reister, her children, Andy's Parents & brother Jim. The Reisters are stand up members of our community. Can Mr. Oddone say that?
Total comments by Draggerman: 33
Total comments by AnonymousSgh: 74
Total comments by Sam: 223
Bouncers, Security or ID Checkers whatever you want to call them are suppose to diffuse situations in bars, nightclubs; pushing someone then walking away is not the way to create a safer setting.
Total comments by INS: 524
Another mistake made by the Public House is to have just one bouncer - no less than two should have approached Oddone and removed him. That would have minimized the possibility of injury for all.
I am no friend of Oddone or Reister and don't know either of them, but have read enough about this to see there is blame for all. Demonizing Oddone for his mistakes and calling for the Death Penalty is grossly out of line. The bits and pieces I hear make me suspect a fair trial is only a remote possibility. Reister's actions seemed just as poorly thought out as Oddones, only as a Corrections Officer presumably Reister had training Oddone did not, training that included what were appropriate means of lawfully approaching and dealing with suspects.
Total comments by Funbeer: 18
Also He also has prior experience smashing beer bottles over someones head in a bar.
Fair trial to me includes prior violent assaults. What is unfair is that thesepriors are being removed from the trial, which leads jurors to believe that this might be a first time for Oddone.
Fair is an opinion.
Total comments by year round: 11
Total comments by Sam: 223
Total comments by pstevens: 84
Total comments by wondering: 49
Total comments by INS: 524
Total comments by ET66: 6
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