Oct 3, 2016 3 min read

Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty against a Burgettstown businessman charged in connection with the fatal shooting of his daughter’s ex-boyfriend in April.

Assistant District Attorney Jason Walsh made that statement Monday when James Bongiorni, 68, of 24 Highland Avenue, appeared in court for a formal arraignment before Washington County Judge Michael J. Lucas.

Bongiorni, a former constable and Burgettstown police offices, faces a count of criminal homicide. McDonald police said he shot Brian Wilbert, 38, outside his daughter Darlo Bongiorni’s home at 5 Hillcrest Drive April 27.

Police responded to the shooting about 9 p.m. and found Wilbert with a gunshot wound in his abdomen. He was flown to a Pittsburgh hospital and pronounced dead hours later.

Lucas also set a timeline at the hearing for the prosecution and defense to file briefs supporting or opposing a bid by attorney Robert Del Greco Jr., who represents Bongiorni, to get his client a bond hearing. Bongiorni is being held without bond in Washington County jail.

The state constitution entitles defendants to bond except in cases where the penalty is death, when the defendant faces possible life in prison or when “no condition or combination of conditions other than imprisonment will reasonably assure the safety of any person and the community when the proof is evident or presumption great.”

Del Greco said in a July 29 petition he intends to argue Bongiorni acted in self-defense and alleged the prosecution will be unable to meet the threshold to prove his client committed first-degree murder, which carries a penalty of death or life without parole in Pennsylvania.

He also wrote courts must consider mitigating factors, adding, “On April 27, (2016) Mr. Bongiorni was presented with a man almost half his age, with a violent criminal past, who had communicated threats of murder to his daughter, possessed a knife, and was highly intoxicated.”

Del Greco also said in the six-page document his client is not a flight risk and has no criminal history.

Walsh countered by saying for a judge to deny bail, the prosecution only has to show it “could meet the burden of first-degree murder.”

Walsh pointed to a video taken from across the street that allegedly shows Bongiorni shooting Wilbert that night.

Sixteen-year-old Emily Wysocki – whose mother’s house is across the street from Darlo Bongiorni’s – testified at a preliminary hearing in July she filmed Bongiorni shooting Wilbert that night.

Walsh said the video shows Bongiorni shooting “a man with his hands to his sides” who “never makes a move toward the defendant.”

Wysocki said she heard Darlo Bongiorni, who was also outside, say “Don’t do it, Brian,” before the shooting. Asked what Darlo Bongiorni meant, Wysocki said she thought the statement was an admonition to Wilbert not to stab James Bongiorni – a conclusion she said she drew later on, after she learned a knife was found in the vehicle that Wilbert and another man had arrived in.