On the morning of 11/07/2012 John Egan was arrested on Sound Shore Road in Northville, which is in the township of Riverhead New York, after getting a flat tire. Regina was going through John’s cellphone while he was trying to change the tire, she saw pictures of John with another woman named Amber Bagnardi and got jealous.
As John was attempting to loosen the lugnuts off the front right tire to put the spare tire on, a Riverhead Town police officer stopped to see if he needed assistance. Regina, sitting in the passenger seat, at the height of her jealousy, claimed she was kidnapped and the injuries that she had from Marisa she accused John of.
Ultimately, John spent over five years in prison from 11/07/2012 until 7/27/2017 from an indeterminate 3-9 year sentence, without any convictions of a violent felony. Technically the felony of aggravated criminal contempt is classified as non-violent for violating a lawful mandate of a judge, the underlying misdemeanor of assault for pushing is classified as violent, punishable to a maximum of one year in jail. When there is an order of protection involved the penalty increases to 7 years on a “D” felony.
This underlying misdemeanor is based on a false police report as it were, and there never should have been an order of protection to begin with.
Also, since Judge Efman was the same Judge that issued the order of protection he should not have been the Judge at the time of sentencing because he could not remain fair or impartial. In fact, Judge Efman had yelled at the accused several times in court and John was told to remain silent. This alone proves bias.
During one day of this order of protection, Regina Mazzarelli called John up 86 times on 11/07/2012, according to his phone records and claimed that if John didn’t meet with her on 11/07/12, she would commit suicide. Regina knew that one of John’s ex-girlfriends, Jennifer Palagonia had several suicide attempts before actually commiting suicide during his time at Riverhead SCCF and Regina knew exactly how to manipulate him.
During trial, it was just a one sided story against John Egan, Judge Martin Efman told his lawyer Scott Gross off the record that if he took the witness stand, he would end the trial early and sentence John to a mental hospital because of a letter that John wrote Judge Efman claiming that he heard a female at the Riverhead SCCF yelling for help and being abused by correctional officers.
Once sentenced to a mental institution, defense lawyer Scott Gross said that it could be for an “indefinite” period of time.
This video was provided to John Egan’s first lawyer Robert Previto who was a past master of Suffolk 60 Lodge in Port Jefferson. Since Robert Previto and John Egan were fraternal brothers since 2009, John was under the impression that Robert Previto would take the case pro bono, or request compensation from the Masonic Brotherhood Fund.
Robert Previto told John Egan that the fund was only for “worthy” brothers, and then proceeded to slander him at the lodge, subsequently petitioning for the Grand Lodge in Manhattan to remove John as a Free & Accepted Mason by 2016.
John Egan never signed a contract with his fraternal brother Robert Previto, only a hand shake. Robert Previto knew that John Egan was homeless at the time of his arrest, living in his vehicle. However Mr. Previto did manage to get about $5,000 from his mother, Louise Egan, but after representing John Egan during December 2012 and January 2013, he claimed that he needed another $3,000. The work that he did during about three or four court dates was about 5 minutes of speaking per court date.
He tried to justify the amount of money he was asking for by charging for travel time ($250/hr), responding with one sentence to an email ($250/hr), talking to John over recorded phone conversations that the D.A. was listening to ($250/hr). Even if it was only for one minute, he rounded up always to a full hour of work at a high rate to justify his wage.
After Robert Previto removed himself as John’s defense council in January 2013 due to “irreconcilable differences”, he refused to hand over all the evidence or provide it to John’s new defense council, Scott Gross. This is actually equivalent to extortion, witholding this exculpatory evidence until John’s mother paid him $3000 more. Keep in mind there was no contract signed between Robert Previto or John Egan.
The “irreconcilable differences” was that John refused to take a plea bargain, essentially putting extreme pressure on John, to admit to a crimes that he didn’t commit, which is duress and coercion.
Scott Gross was finally given a copy of this video clip about a week before trial but the video was purposely stopped short by ADA Josh Bengis when the video goes black temporarily. ADA Josh Bengis also told Judge Martin Efman that there was no way of telling when the video was filmed, this is on the record. But as you can see from the youtube clip above, it was filmed the day before John’s arrest.
During John’s sentencing, ADA Josh Bengis actually wrote the victim impact statement for Regina Mazzarelli. This is very obvious to anyone that knows Regina because she simply doesn’t use that type of vocabulary. Her statement was supposed to be authentic and genuine, written and spoken only by her alone. This proves that she was also coerced by the District Attorney’s office, which has a history of witness tampering under Thomas Spota’s years.
The jury never got to see this video because Judge Martin Efman concluded that it was “irrelevant”. This is also the same Judge who was stricken from the primary ballot for the Working Families Party after he tried to illegally fill a vacancy on the 2002 voting ballot. Also in future elections, somehow running unopposed on the ballot.
John was also told that if he did take the witness stand, Scott Gross would stop the trial and remove himself due to “irreconcilable differences”. Since John had already waited for over 2 years without bail for trial, he was also under extreme duress from the psychological and physical torture of the Sherriff Emergency Response Team, and correctional officers at Riverhead Suffolk County Correctional Facility.
S.E.R.T. officers went to John’s cell in solitary confinement and told him to his face that if he wrote another letter to the FBI, they would strangle him and make it look like a suicide, and then to prove the point, moved him to suicide watch, taking away all of his property. Where John witnessed the S.E.R.T. beat and strangle another inmate, ultimately making it appear that the other inmate killed himself. This inmate that was killed was a male in his 40s with long blonde hair, who was said to have “wet brain syndrome” from severe alcohol abuse.
John provided evidence to Scott Gross that was on a desktop computer about a separate series of crimes known as “LISK”, that evidence disappeared once handed over to ADA Josh Bengis. It is now known that D.A. Thomas Spota has already been convicted for “witness tampering”, “obstruction of justice”, “obstructing an official proceeding”, and “conspiracy to tamper with witnesses”; so it is very likely that the District Attorney’s office made this evidence disappear.
Scott Gross met with John Egan one time before trial in the attorney’s visiting room, only for about 5 minutes, even though John was held for over two years in county jail with no bail, John himself filed for a habeas corpus to Supreme Court, successfully representing himself in August 2013, only to get the possibility of bail removed a short time later during a CPL 730 hearing in September 2013 by Judge Martin Efman. This was not only a violation of his 8th Amendment right (that bail should not be excessive) it was also a violation of due process which is ensured in our U.S. Bill of Rights.
They ran each indictment consecutively after trial adding up to a sentence of 3-9 years, something John was not even aware was possible. In fact, John was offered “time served” a week before trial started if he would just “confess” to his crime. His lawyer, Scott Gross also brought John’s crying mother into the attorney booth to put additional pressure on him to plead guilty to 11 crimes that were the result of the Suffolk County’s malicious prosecution. Using a crying mother as leverage to get a client to plead guilty to a crime that he did not commit is improper and can probably result in getting disbarred.
Scott Gross asked Regina Mazzarelli a question at the end of his cross examination, which was “were you ever raped before”? To which Regina answered no. John was never even accused of this crime (remember after two years waiting for trial in county jail, Scott Gross had only visited John once). This is just one example of the “deprivation of effective assitance of counsel” argument that was made during appeal. The three other phone calls between John and his lawyer during those two years were being listened to by the District Attorney. John was being accused of calling Regina on a recorded phone call after an agreement was signed between John’s lawyer and judge Martin Efman.
That’s disobeying a direct order by the court, or Criminal Contempt. The same judge that gave the order, was the same judge that gave the excessive sentence, which is also a conflict of interest, making it hard for the judge to remain objective and fair. The primary function of a judge is for him to ensure the fairness of trial proceedings. Taking the crime personally is an obvious reason that Martin Efman should have precluded himself from sentencing due to a conflict of interest.
One of the crimes that John was accused of was a Christmas phone call to Regina, on 12/25/12, a collect phone call, where both parties said “I love you”, John was then indicted on new charges for criminal contempt and tampering with a witness shortly after. Keep in mind when you call someone from county jail they have the option to block all phone calls from jail very easily if the individual wants to. Regina later claims that since she was on her mother’s cell phone plan, the mother mailed a copy of her phone bill when she noticed the additional $5 collect call.
The Christmas call added another 3 years to the sentencing, which was ran consecutively, not concurrently. 1-3 year E Felony (12/25/12 recorded Christmas phone call) + 1-3 year E Felony (12/12/12 recorded Anniversary phone call)+ 1-3 year E Felony (11/07/12 arrested for being in Regina’s presence while changing a flat tire on his Jeep) = 3 to 9 year indeterminate sentence.
Adding the charges one after the other is called adding them consecutively. You can only do this when the charges are different indictments, and since the calls were on different dates, they were added as separate indictments.
By comparison, the barefoot bandit who committing hundreds of burglaries, grand theft autos, and 6 grand theft planes across several states and countries was only sentenced to 7 years compared to John’s 9 year sentence for mostly violating an order of protection with “I love you” phone calls.
Even though John had no disciplinary record in prison, John was denied twice at the parole board for being a “danger to the welfare of society”. The board cited this reason due to the existence of an active order of protection against John.
Arrested on 11/07/2012, released from parole November 2018. After winning an appeal on the original eleven charges, John did 5 years in prison and one year of parole. The remaining convictions are of one felony Aggravated Criminal Contempt charge, and one misdeameanor Criminal Contempt charge.
The order of protection was originally based on an assault charge of “pushing” Regina, which she stated in the below notorized letter, “the incident with the stairs was an accident”. She originally claimed that she was pushed down a flight of stairs in Farmingville, NY. Regina actually ran and charged John Egan and he fell down the stairs backwards after he called her “crazy”. One of John’s ex-girlfriends had called his phone while John was in the shower, causing Regina to accuse him of cheating, which wasn’t even true, this is what caused her to tackle him down the flight of stairs. In fact during their relationship Regina had cheated on John with 24 different men and women, due to her histrionic personality disorder. Each time she asked John to forgive her, and each time he overlooked it, thinking that forgiveness proves unconditional love.
Here is the notorized copy of Regina’s handwritten letter stating that she never wanted the order of protection dated March 22nd 2012. John was arrested for violating the order on November 7th 2012. New indictments were then added due to the recorded phone calls on December 12th 2012 and December 25th 2012.
Regina never called 911, a police officer pulled over as John was attempting to change a flat tire on November 7th 2012, Officer Silleck asked for and ran John’s drivers license to check for any outstanding warrants. After doing this, he saw the active order of protection, prompting him to question Regina.
Regina was going through John’s cellphone while he was attempting to change his flat tire and reading old text messages between Amber Bagnardi and John Egan from July and August 2012. During a time that John was separated from Regina. John heard Regina say to Officer Silleck that her name was “Rose Priani” a combination of her middle name and mother’s maiden name. However she gave her real date of birth, which matched the exact date of birth as the person who had the Order of Protection.
Regina Mazzarelli then played a damsel in distress to the responding officer, Mr. Silleck as soon as he realized that she was lying (she has a diagnosed histrionic personality disorder that was not allowed to be known to the trial jury). Regina then signed a false police report after a four hour precinct interrogation in Riverhead, she was afraid of retracting it later and telling the truth for fear of perjury during trial, which is a felony. John was arrested due to Regina’s jealousy of these text messages between him and Amber, even telling him that “I’d rather you be in jail then be with Amber” on a voicemail.
During Regina’s four hour interrogation the detectives lied and manipulated Regina Mazzarelli, scaring the crap out of her. They found a can of gasoline and a chainsaw in John Egan’s trunk as he was working to clean debris after Superstorm Sandy. They told Regina that they suspected John Egan to be the Long Island Serial Killer and was planning on chopping her to pieces and burning her. This was far from the truth but played a role in Regina being coerced into filing a false police report and then later continuing the narrative in court for her own self interests.
While being held in Riverhead SCCF for two years awaiting trial without the possibility of bail, John was housed under 23 hour lock down, administrative segregation. In August 2013, he was being held on the 4th floor, and the 5th floor directly above him, was the suicide watch for female inmates. John, along with other inmates heard a female inmate being sexually assaulted by numerous S.E.R.T. or Sherriffs Emergency Response Team officers during the 3:30pm to 11:30pm shift.
Many officers were involved to make them all equally culpable and to make sure they would not tell on there co-workers. It was psychological torture for John Egan and other inmates nearby to listen to. John decided to write two letters, one to internal affairs, which the outgoing mail was intercepted by correctional officers, prevented from reaching its destination, and one to Judge Martin Efman.
At this point John was moved to suicide watch, which is really “death row” for inmates as the accused correctional officers that illegally opened outgoing mail, discussed the possibility of killing John Egan and making it look like a suicide. They chose to ask Dr. Troiano to give John Egan a diagnose of being “paranoid and delusional” instead, showing mercy, sending him to Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center, on Ward’s Island, which is an island between Manhattan and Queens, for the period of time between January 2014 and May 2014.
The sexual abuse against this female inmate lasted for about a week, in August 2013, where she was instructed to only say “Yeah”, “Harder”, or “oh God”. As soon as she broke down and started crying, begging for them to stop, they must have strangled her and John saw a body bag being taken out from the window of John’s cell and the body bag was presumed to be her as the yelling stopped after that.
That’s when John started to realize that this female inmate must have been accused of prostitution and that the S.E.R.T. were part of the Gilgo Beach, LISK crimes, a group of eleven people, essentially organized crime. Surprisingly there was even a poster by the Riverhead SCCF elevator with a reward for information about the LISK crimes. What was actually going on was the Lucchese family had paid the correctional officers at the head of Riverhead jail security to get rid of any inmate “rats”. If inmate Egan dropped a slip to security it would have been lights out for him.
In New York State the 7 year statute of limitations prevented John from ever getting justice from George Lyzak’s three previous attempts of trying to kill John Egan, once in Smithtown on December 7th 2011 at Oasis Club parking lot, once in Farmingville outside of 60 John Drive, and once in Rocky Point at 143 Magnolia after kicking down the front door jumping on John’s upper body and then starting to try to break his trachea. Ironically it was Dawn stopped George and said simply “there are too many witnesses here”. John then promised that he would never make another police report for the rest of his life. They all knew that John would keep his word about not making any future police reports and showed him mercy. That was April 2012. The other four tenants that lived in the house were all witnesses to this. The last thing George said to John was that he was lucky Dawn called it off. She was also the owner of the house at 143 Magnolia, it was her childhood home before her sister, Mary Morrison won the Mega Millions in December 2010.
Also during the time that John Egan was dating Amber Bagnardi, Regina Mazzarelli was dating George Lyzak, the spring and summer of 2012. On the day of John Egan’s arrest Regina also claimed that George had put her up to calling John 86 times on that day. Since John has not spoken to Regina at all since 2012, the details of Regina and George’s relationship are not fully clear. John believes that George specifically targeted Regina due to the existence of the order of protection between John and Regina as a way to get around Dawn’s order. Regina was essentially weaponized against John Egan, motivated by her own self preservation.
A group of ten people are ultimately responsible for the LISK organized crimes.
George W. Lyzak Jr.(Murder for Hire), Fred Pannhurst Sr., Dawn Morrison (Lucchese associate), the former Suffolk Chief of Police, James Burke, the Suffolk County Executive, and six members of the Sheriff Emergency Response Team.
The letter that made it to Judge Efman started the CPL 730 hearings in October 2013 until January 2014. John answered all of Dr. Goldman’s and Dr. Troiano’s questions factually and correctly but was still failed on the CPL 730 hearing anyway. To this day, nine years later, no serious investigation was ever made into John Egan’s claims.
After being released from Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center in May of 2014, a trial date was set for August 2014, where John ultimately defended himself against 12 of the 14 malicious prosecution charges against him, without even testifying himself during the actual trial.
Scott Gross told John Egan that if he was to take the witness stand in his own defense, then ADA Josh Bengis would focus on this letter about a separate issue and Judge Efman would end the trial early sending John back to a mental institution for “an indefinite period of time”.
After reading the Suffolk D.A.’s website they boast of a 97% conviction rate, one of the highest in all counties of America. This is nothing to be proud of, in fact, it’s statistically impossible. Since the conditions are so bad in Suffolk County Correctional Facility, where there is nothing that even remotely resembles a rehabilitation program, innocent people are pleading guilty to crimes they didn’t commit just to get released from this torturous environment. County Jail is mostly a place where inmates are waiting for trial and are supposed to be “innocent until proven guilty”.
D.O.C.C.S. stands for Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. Not the Department of Punishment. And since most people that are in prison will eventually be released back into our community, it’s probably not a good idea to torture state prisoners and county inmates.
Here is the transcript for the pre-trial October 2013 CPL 730 testimony, which is to see if the defendant is mentally competent to proceed with a criminal trial. Usually the defense will bring this motion, but in this particular case the motion was made by the Suffolk County District Attorney of New York or “the People”. A Huntley hearing is another pre-trial hearing, which is to investigate oral statements of admission to a crime at the time the defendant gets arrested, which was heard by the court in September 2013.
No media outlets reported on John’s arrest in 2012 or trial in 2014.
Since John was under extreme duress and coercion not to take the witness stand during his August 2014 trial, this is his testimony.
As you can see from the above screenshots Riverhead Suffolk County Correctional Facility has a long history of ridiculous inmate abuses. So when John Egan accused the Sheriff Emergency Response Team of raping a female inmate for hours on August 2nd 2013, and eventually killing her, it really should not have been that unbelievable.
Also during the third week of August 2013, inmate Egan was in the Riverhead visiting room, getting a visit from his parents, when he had a seizure, the only place in the entire facility where the video cameras actually work.
Instead of getting any medical treatment for the seizure he has dragged and beaten by correctional officers and issued a ticket for “malingering” which was eventually dismissed when they discovered that inmate Egan was being given a medication called “Keppra”, which is an anti-seizure medication. Otherwise he would have been put back in “the box” also known as solitary confinement. Instead he was moved to “suicide watch” where officers openly discussed the possibility of killing him and making it look like a suicide.
