Last Dance, Last Chance

calls made to Tony’s pager, that information matched.
    In order to assure themselves that Arnie Letovich wasn’t exaggerating his position as a close companion of Tony Pignataro, Frank Sedita and the D.A.’s investigators pored through thousands of pages of financial records, telephone bills, and jail and hospital documents. It took a long time, but every detail of Letovich’s story was verified.
    Letovich said that he had gone to Mercy Hospital to meet with Pignataro sometime in the second week of July. He was sure that it was a Friday, and that would have been July 9. He said he’d paged Tony at the hospital and then gone over there, but Tony had already left. They had met up later—about 5 P.M. —when Tony copped more heroin.
    Anthony Pignataro had apparently had an insatiable appetite for heroin. Letovich said he copped heroin for him after they met at the Lafayette Hotel near the Buffalo Public Library. He had kept a running record of their exchanges. Letovich said he had provided heroin to Pignataro on July 21, July 24, July 28, and July 29. On the last day, he’d copped a ten-bag bundle for him.
    Tony had told Letovich he was going out of town on a trip after that.
    The only thing Letovich wanted in return for his cooperation in prosecuting Tony Pignataro was some help getting into a long-term drug rehab program. He no longer wanted to live the kind of life he had been living. The men observing him had heard that song and dance before from dozens of suspects and convicts, and they had reason to doubt. Only time would tell.
     
    On September 1, 1999, Frank Sedita interviewed Tami Maxell and her attorney in his office while Chuck Craven and Pat Finnerty observed and listened. Tami’s attorney asked for immunity for his client for any information she might divulge in this meeting.
    Tami was a striking woman, although a little nervous as she recalled her relationship with Anthony Pignataro. She said they’d met sometime in March 1997 at Gold’s Gym, where they both worked out. They got to know each other a little better when he showed her some rental space in a building near his Center Street office in West Seneca. By May, they had begun a physical affair.
    Tami knew that Anthony was married, but that hadn’t interfered with their mutual attraction, and they had dated until Anthony went to jail in August 1998. They hadn’t really broken up, but while Anthony was locked up, Tami dated an attorney who worked in the probation department for three months, beginning the month Anthony went away. That relationship turned ugly, she said, and sometime in early December, Tami said she had filed a domestic violence report against Sam Picone, the attorney.
    Interestingly, Tami’s relationship with Picone ended a day or two after Anthony got out of jail. She saw Anthony again at Gold’s Gym, where a group of people they all knew worked out together. Anthony gave her his pager number, although she understood that he was living with his wife.
    But he wasn’t working very hard on his marriage: Tami said that she and Anthony had resumed their affair in either February or March. Soon after, Anthony left his wife and moved into an apartment on Center Road.
    Tami didn’t appear to be much more faithful to romantic partners than Anthony was. On March 26, she had become engaged to yet another man. However, she continued to see Anthony three or four times a week.
    Tami said that she had been confronted by an angry Debbie Pignataro in March. Debbie had a copy of a letter Anthony had written to Tami while he was in jail. Sam Picone had taken it without Tami’s knowledge, and, of course, sent it to Debbie.
    Debbie had begun to call Tami often, asking questions. Although Tami insisted that she wasn’t having an affair with Debbie’s husband, Debbie didn’t believe her. Perhaps she wasn’t sleeping with Anthony in March; it was difficult to chart when Tami and Anthony were together and when they weren’t.
    Tami said that Debbie had called her as recently as July, still suspicious that she and Anthony were seeing each other. Again, Tami had lied and said she was not involved with him.
    Frank Sedita asked Tami about the last time she had been with Tony Pignataro. She guessed that it was in the first half of July. He had come to her house.
    Tami said Anthony had confided in her that he was struggling with the court system, trying desperately to get his probation moved to Florida. He had it all planned out. His mother had