Joey Comunale was a 26-year-old successful young man from Connecticut who went out clubbing with friends in New York City in 2016 & ended his night at an afterparty where he seemingly vanished.
Joey was born on March 9, 1990 in Stamford, Connecticut to parents Pat & Lisa & he had a younger sister, Alexa; the family of four was very tight-knit. Joey was a huge sports fan & loved going into the city to catch a Yankees, Rangers or Giants game. His father Pat was from a blue-collar, Bronx family who went on to build a successful security firm which he later sold in 2014 for more than $400 million. Despite the immense wealth & privilege that Joey was raised in, Pat described his son as an unbelievable kid who never got into trouble & was never aggressive.
On Saturday, November 12, 2016, Joey hadn’t been feeling well & ended up taking a three-hour nap, having no intention of going out that night. However, when he woke, he saw a text from a college friend who was a part-time promoter who offered Joey & his friends VIP service at the Gilded Lily, a club then located in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan. With this invitation, Joey left his home in Stamford for a night out, his friend, Stephen Naso, driving. They hopped onto the Merritt Parkway & made the 41 mile drive into Manhattan for a fun night out where they met up with a group of friends.
Joey was working as a sales associate at his father’s security company & when he wasn’t working, he surrounded himself with good people. He was the type of guy who wanted to have fun while avoiding drama & problems.
Many people viewed Joey as their best friend, but his father, Pat, said Joey truly was his best friend; they spoke on a daily basis, often talking about the Yankees or the Rangers. When Pat wasn’t able to reach his son the next day, he wasn’t initially worried because he assumed Joey had a late night & was still asleep.
Stephen Naso looks back on the night & recalls that they all had a blast, smiling & laughing the night away. As the club was closing, Joey & his friends could be seen on surveillance video leaving; it was now the early hours of Sunday, November 13, 2016. Video captured a crowd emptying from the club, onto the street where Joey began speaking with three women who had also been in the club that night.
It was about 3:30 am & Joey was standing on the street when he began talking to three women who were also standing outside the club. As they spoke, two guys walked up & joined the conversation. The men didn’t know the women or Joey & his friends; they were 28-year-old Larry Dilione & 29-year-old Max Gemma. The two had been friends since elementary school in Oceanport, New Jersey & were currently roommates in an apartment in Jersey City.
Stephen’s girlfriend had taken his phone while looking for her car & called Joey’s number when she wasn’t able to find it. Stephen borrowed Joey’s phone & stepped away from the group & when he turned back, the group was gone. They had jumped into a couple of cabs & Joey left his cell phone behind with Stephen, likely planning on just getting it back later that day.
Stephen got word that Joey had gone to a party uptown at someone’s apartment so he headed back to Stamford with Joey’s phone. They later learned that Joey had been invited to an afterparty at the Sutton Place, a luxury apartment building where 25-year-old James Rackover lived. James had not been at the Gilded Lily that night, instead he had gone to a Friendsgiving & came back home around 9:30 pm with a woman he had been seeing. They hooked up & then she fell asleep in his bedroom. As James got ready to go to sleep, he got a text from Larry, asking if his group could head over there to hang out & continue the party.
Hours later, now on Sunday afternoon, Joey’s cell phone began to ring & when Stephen answered, Pat asked where his son was & Stephen told him that Joey was still in the city. When Pat still hadn’t heard from his son by noon, he knew something was wrong. It was tradition that every Sunday, Pat & Joey get together at the family home in Stamford to choose their fantasy football teams & watch the games together, yet that day, Joey hadn’t shown up & he hadn’t contacted his family. When Pat went to Joey’s apartment, his son also wasn’t there.
Pat began calling around & touching base with his son’s friends & in the meantime, Stephen ended up tracking down Larry, who had left with Joey for the afterparty, & Larry told him that he wasn’t sure where Joey went after he left.
Immediately, Joey’s friends came together & began combing social media, searching for any information that could lead to finding Joey. When they plugged Larry’s phone number into Google, they were able to find his last name: Lawrence Dilione. When Max Branchinelli, one of Joey’s closest friends, heard that he was missing, the restaurant manager transformed into an online detective. He was in a panic & was determined to find his friend.
Max started with Instagram since it allowed him to click on the location of a place which would then show people that posted a picture from that location. He began using Instagram’s locator function for the Gilded Lily, searching for any users that had posted & tagged that location on the previous night & that morning. He kept his eyes out for Joey as he scrolled through the pictures, searching for his friend.
As he was scrolling, Max spotted another friend, Alvin, in the middle of a photo. It wasn’t the only reason that photo had caught his eye, but also the fact that there were girls with dark features pictured that he knew were exactly Joey’s type. Max screenshotted the photo & sent it to a group of the guys who were out at the club that night & he got a response that the girl in the image was indeed the one that had gone to the Sutton Place party with Joey. When Max called his friend Alvin, he just so happened to have her phone number.
When Max called the girl, he asked her if she remembered being at the party with Joey earlier that morning & explained that they couldn’t find him. She confirmed that yes, she had been there with Joey & that when the party ended early that Sunday morning, Larry Dilione & Joey walked her & her friends to an Uber. She said that as the car was pulling away, the guys waved at them & then it appeared as if Joey was going back inside with Larry.
When Max spoke with Larry, he indicated that Joey had not come back inside the building & instead, he’d left in the Uber with the women. This was in direct contrast to what the woman had told him. As Max listened, he knew someone was lying, but who & why?
Ten hours had gone by since Joey was last seen & when Max updated Pat about the situation, he immediately contacted Larry. Larry maintained that he last saw Joey getting into the Uber with the women. He did provide one additional detail that seemed “off” to Pat & that was when Larry said that the last he heard, Joey said he was going to get cigarettes.
This was very surprising to Pat because Joey was very well known to have never purchased a pack of cigarettes in his life, even according to his friends. Joey did smoke from time to time, but he never bought them himself so this detail made no sense at all.
At this point, Pat made the decision to contact the Stamford PD to file a missing persons report. He also provided all the information he had, including Larry’s contact information. The on-duty sergeant contacted Larry who denied having any knowledge of Joey’s whereabouts, but provided him with the names & numbers of two friends who had been at the party: James Rackover & Max Gemma. Larry also gave him James’ address: 418 E. 59th Street in Manhattan which was where the afterparty was held at the Grand Sutton.
The Grand Sutton is a luxury condo in one of the wealthiest areas of New York City on the Upper East Side where many celebrities mingle & apartment 4C was the unit where 25-year-old James Rackover lived.
As police continued their investigation, they began to learn more about the three men who were being named in this case who were all in their 20s; Larry Dilione, James Rackover & Max Gemma. Larry met & became friends with James in March 2016, eight months earlier. All three came from very privileged backgrounds; Larry Dilione, who was known to be short-tempered, worked in real estate & came from a wealthy New Jersey family who owned thoroughbred horses. Max Gemma was a computer software salesman whose father was once the mayor of Oceanport, New Jersey & had been in business with Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law.
James Rackover, who lived in Sutton Place had the most charmed life of the three. His father Jeffrey, who had a much larger condo on the 32nd floor of the same building, specialized in one-of-a-kind jewelry for the richest of the rich. Jeffrey was friends with exceptionally wealthy people such as Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys & came to know Oprah. He had even designed the ring that Donald Trump purchased to propose to Milania Trump. James Rackover was an aspiring model who worked in the insurance business, loved boxing & even had a Boxer dog he named “Gloves.”
The three women who were along for the ride that night were Jenna Stisi, Katie Conroy & Samantha Guardiola.
In addition to contacting the Stamford PD to file a missing persons report, Pat also contacted the NYPD at 9 am on Monday morning, about 25 hours after anyone had reported seeing Joey. Pat was at the 17th Police Precinct when he spoke with Detective Yeoman Castro about everything he knew.
Detective Castro drove Pat over to the Grand Sutton & asked to view the building’s security footage. As they reviewed the footage together, Castro asked Pat if he could identify his son in any of the images & that’s when he saw Joey walking the three women out to the curb with Larry at 6:44 am. Based on what Larry had told him, he expected to watch his son get into the Uber with the women. Instead he watched as Joey & Larry turned & re-enter the building together, just as the woman that Max spoke with indicated. This was in direct contrast with what Larry had told both Max & Pat when they’d spoken with him.
That afternoon, as the footage was being gathered, James Rackover just happened to walk into the building as he was returning home from work. According to Castro, as he breezed by, he seemed to tauntingly say, “Good luck getting that video.” A half hour later, he came back & said, “Good thing I spoke to my girlfriend last night. She said I was in the apartment all night.”
As Pat was preparing to go back to the 17th Police Precinct as Castro had instructed him to do, he stood outside to make a phone call when he noticed the porter bringing the building’s garbage out for collection. He quickly ran back inside, caught up with Detective Castro & told him to keep the garbage so it could be searched, believing that these three men could have been responsible for his son’s disappearance.
Sadly, Pat was correct & inside the garbage, they discovered Joey’s bloodied pants, shirt, driver’s license & a chain that he always wore that Pat had given him. Instantly, Pat was sure that there was no way his son had walked out of that building alive.
Castro was fully aware that had Joey’s family not lived locally or had such close contact, this case could have turned out completely differently. The evidence from the garbage could have been lost & the surveillance footage as well.
Fifteen hours after surveillance video captured Larry & Joey walking back inside the apartment building at 6:44 am on Sunday morning, video captured James Rackover driving away in his father’s Mercedes. With the assistance of NYPD’s network of cameras, they were able to follow some of his movements & captured it heading down FDR Drive. The car traveled south & turned into the Holland Tunnel that headed to New Jersey. Detectives weren’t able to pinpoint where the car ultimately stopped so they went on to contact Larry Dilione who agreed to meet with them. When Castro spoke with Larry on the phone to arrange the meeting, he could immediately hear how flustered & nervous he seemed as he spoke rapidly & indicated that, “There was a lot of drugs & alcohol, it was a crazy night.”
As they spoke with Larry in an interrogation room, they could sense that he had something he wanted to share & on Tuesday, he began talking. He indicated that the party at Sutton Place had been wild & involved drinking & cocaine & one of the women had videotaped some of it with her phone. Larry & James Rackover even competed to see who could give the best lapdance on one of the young women. No one who gathered there could recall there being any hostility or tension, specifically no issues directed toward Joey who perched on the windowsill during much of the party. By 6:45 am, the women were leaving in the Uber & that’s when video surveillance captured Larry & Joey heading back inside & up to unit 4C.
Larry said that once they were back inside, he had an exchange of words with Joey to the effect of Joey saying, “James got the cocaine, I got the cigarettes, what did you bring to the table?” Larry said that Joey was confrontational & slammed his hand onto the table which caused him to fly into a rage. He said that he slammed into Joey, knocking him down & hit him a few times.
Larry said that while he was punching Joey, his friend Max Gemma had been asleep on the couch, but James Rackover had jumped right in. According to Larry, Joey was completely defenseless as James began beating him until he started to make gurgling noises & struggled to breathe.
The Comunale’s lawyer, Bob Abrams, has also heard Larry’s confession.
He said that after James beat Joey nearly to death, Max woke up. According to Bob Abrams, Larry said that both he & Max were incredibly nervous after witnessing James beat Joey so terribly that they would have done anything he asked at that point. Both Larry & Max claimed that James insisted they strip off their clothes to prevent any blood evidence leaving the scene. Larry indicated that he told Max to leave & that’s when James began stabbing Joey which is what ended his life.
Larry said that Max left the apartment & had nothing to do with Joey’s murder. Max indicates that the last thing he saw was James standing over Joey’s limp body which lay in the bathtub. Larry said that James dragged Joey’s body into the bathroom & attempted to dismember him with a serrated knife from the kitchen while Joey lay in the bathtub. Realizing how difficult this proved to be, he stopped & he & Larry began to plot their next move.
The pair wrapped Joey’s body in Saran wrap & a comforter & began to frantically clean the apartment, mopping up the blood with bleach & paper towels. They dumped their clothes into the building’s garbage collection along with bloody towels, sheets & Joey’s personal possessions. Evidence showed that the two even stopped to eat after they placed a food delivery order from Bareburger that totaled $76.64. After consuming their beef on a brioche bun served medium rare with country bacon, surveillance video showed that they’d explored the building’s basement trying to figure out a way to remove Joey’s body from the building unseen & roamed the hallways in search of an area that had an exit that wasn’t monitored by cameras.
It was obvious that the pair figured that because Joey had been a stranger to them one day earlier, they had no direct connection to him & if they got rid of the body before someone came looking, they could be in the clear. However, as darkness fell, they began fielding phone calls from Joey’s friends & his father as well as the Stamford police. During the late afternoon, while Pat spoke on the phone with Larry, his son’s body still remained inside the apartment.
Under the cover of darkness, Larry said that while James set off to borrow his father Jeffrey’s 2015 Mercedes-Benz AMG S 63, he moved Joey’s body to the ledge of James’ fourth floor apartment window. James drove the car to the relatively deserted East 59th Street & when he gave Larry the sign, Larry pushed Joey’s body out of the fourth floor window where it fell into an area where there were bushes & concrete below. After Larry came down, they loaded the body into the trunk of the car & drove off.
Larry said they disposed of the body in a wooded area behind a florist’s shop in Oceanport, New Jersey since it was an area he was very familiar with since he grew up there, 60 miles from Manhattan. He admits to helping James dig a hole & dumping Joey’s body into it. According to Larry, just before they were going to cover the hole, James found a gas can in an abandoned truck & doused gasoline over Joey’s body & set it on fire.
With this information, police headed to Oceanport in the middle of the night & in the marshland, about 50 yards from the road, a cadaver dog was sent into the weeds when he barked his alert. At about 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday, November 16, three days after Joey disappeared, Detective Castro saw a hand emerging from the mud. Here, they found the burned remains of Joey Comunale, exactly where Larry said it would be. Two hours later, Detective Castro was tasked with the horrific job of informing Joey’s family of the unimaginable news.
The autopsy revealed that Joey had been violently beaten & was stabbed 15 times in the chest; 9 to the right side & 6 to the left. There was a hack wound to Joey’s arm from the attempted dismemberment as well as broken bones from his fall from the 4th floor window.
On November 18, Larry Dilione & James Rackover were arrested & charged with concealment of a human corpse & tampering with physical evidence in the murder of Joey Comunale. Larry was also charged with hindering prosecution. Max Gemma was later arrested & charged with hindering prosecution & tampering with physical evidence after he repeatedly lied to police for two days & he was released on bail. Six months went by before anyone was charged with Joey’s murder. James remained behind bars in Manhattan’s jail complex which is known as The Tombs, unable to afford his bail after Jeffrey cut off his flow of cash.
Joey’s family continued their pressure on the investigation while the two prime suspects pointed their finger at the other in terms of who committed the actual murder. It was clear that the murder had occurred in James’ apartment & evidence showed there was considerably more blood on Larry’s clothing.
In February of 2017, Jame’s former best friend, 24-year-old Louis Ruggiero was subpoenaed to meet with a federal prosecutor. Louis was the troubled son of a very well known New York TV morning anchor woman, Rosanna Scotto, who was friends with Jeffrey Rackover. Louis & James met & became friends through their parents. According to Louis, on the Monday after Joey’s murder, while in the locker room of his gym, James contacted him & said he needed to talk. Louis alleged that James confessed to his direct involvement in the murder, “Larry got into a fight with this kid in the apartment & Larry knocked him unconscious. I gave him a few lickings as well & I didn’t want a dead body in my living room so I slit his throat & I stabbed him & then we wrapped the body up in comforters.”
Louis claimed that when he was first hearing this, he didn’t believe James’ story & replied, “You’re not from Goodfellas.” James swore he was being serious & soon said, “You want to hear the sickest part about it all… I ordered pancakes from a diner & ate it like nothing ever happened.” Louis maintained that he didn’t believe James’ story until the next afternoon when he was walking from his therapist’s office to the gym & noticed police activity outside James’ building. Instead of calling the police, he contacted his mother & a lawyer.
Louis’ story put the knife directly in James’ hands, however, he had definite credibility issues as in 2016, he was in the midst of an active drug addiction which Louis himself admitted to. He said that he was spending as much as $1,200 a day on marijuana, OxyContin, Xanax & cocaine & he also hadn’t contacted the police to inform them of James’ confession. In 2015 he faced a grand larceny charge for stealing a Chanel purse from a nightclub & he may have been supplying Oxycontin to his frat house at George Washington University in 2014 when his frat brother died of an overdose though no charges were filed.
All three men, James Rackover, Larry Dilione & Max Gemma, pleaded not guilty, even Larry who had given a full confession. He challenged his confession, claiming that police ignored him when he informed them that he had a lawyer.
Both Larry & James continued to point fingers at one another in terms of who was responsible for stabbing Joey to death & there is no clear physical evidence to establish who stabbed Joey or where in the apartment he died.
The biggest shock was yet to come as James Rackover, who seemed to live an extremely charmed life, was not who he claimed to be.
To the outside world, James Rackover was an exceptionally wealthy heir & wanna-be model who lived amongst the rich in Sutton Place. However, in reality, James Rackover was not his real name & he was not the son of celebrity jeweler Jeffrey Rackover. Instead, he was born James Beaudoin, an ex-con from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida who had spent almost a year & a half in prison for second-degree burglary. Three months after his release it was September 2013 & he moved to New York where he reportedly met Jeffrey Rackover at a gym.
The two began talking & hit it off & soon the multimillionaire lifelong bachelor who was in his mid-50s invited the 22-year-old James Beaudoin, who had a rap sheet dating back to his teens, to live with him in his 32nd floor apartment in the Grand Sutton. His list of offenses included trespassing, burglary, strong-armed robbery, drug possession & cutting off his ankle monitor to spend a month on the run. He grew up with a single mom, his absentee father showing up from time to time during his childhood.
Initially, Jeffrey & James posed as close friends though as time went on, if anyone asked Jeffrey why the two were suddenly living together, he had a full explanation. Jeffrey told his friends, relatives & neighbors that one day there was a knock at the door & he found a young man standing there who was claiming to be his long-lost son. In March 2015, less than three years after James landed in New York, Jeffrey took the drastic step, allowing James to legally change his name to James Rackover. James continued to maintain that he was the biological son of Jeffrey while parading around Manhattan as a swanky, well-connected Manhattanite.
There are allegations that a sexual relationship began which is an idea that Jeffrey’s lawyer denies as do James’ lawyers who maintain that they had nothing other than a father/son relationship.
Jeffrey Rackover went on to fully financially support James, paying for his education & helping him find a job. He paid for James’ nearly $4,000/month rent after he moved him into apartment 4C at the Grand Sutton in early 2016. When James was initially arrested for Joey’s murder, Jeffrey even funded his defense attorney costs.
On October 15, 2018, James Rackover’s trial began after he had remained behind bars for nearly two years. He maintained that it was Larry Dilione who murdered Joey. Jeffrey was not present in the courtroom during the trial. On the other hand, Joey’s friends & family packed the courtroom each day of the trial & each day took an emotional toll. Pat was the first witness to take the stand & his testimony was incredibly emotional which undoubtedly had an impact on the jury. Those that loved Joey were forced to view graphic autopsy photos that were so horrific, Pat was forced to leave the courtroom.
Prosecutors easily painted the picture of James Rackover as a monstrously callous murderer & played a jailhouse phone conversation where he engaged in conversation with a friend & bragged: I don’t know if you’ve been following this s**t but I start trial in September. So I’m looking at being home around October-ish… my rep’s gonna be up there, bro, like my.. When I hit the street. They’re gonna be like, “Yo, this kid just f**king beat this s**t like Rocky? And he’s home, oh my God!”
The prosecution called the women to the stand who had attended the party that night, Jenna Stisi & Katie Conroy, but parts of their testimony ended up helping the defense when Katie, in particular, said that it was Larry who was showing off the knife & using it to open beers & do coke off of.
James Rackover’s attorneys reinforced that James had everything to lose & nothing to gain by murdering Joey & that if Jeffrey ever knew what went on that night, the relationship would end, thus would be the end of the cash flow.
After more than a week of testimony, prosecutors had a solid case about a murder & a cover-up, but nothing definitive that pointed James as being Joey’s killer. This was when they announced that they had a star witness that would be taking the stand & called in Louis Ruggiero, James’ former friend who had said that James had confessed to being the one to have killed Joey.
A gasp could be heard in the courtroom during Louis’ testimony, specifically when he said that James confessed, “I slit his throat.” This was the first witness who implicated James Rackover in Joey’s murder which was very damaging. Defense attorney Maurice Sercarz claimed that Louis’ testimony was filled with factual errors & pointed out that Joey’s throat had not been slit. Louis originally told the D.A. in February 2017 that Joey’s neck had been broken, but in April of 2017, he said that James confessed to slitting Joey’s throat. While on the stand Louis did admit that he often lied to family & friends for short-term gains. He was granted immunity in exchange for his testimony & would not be prosecuted for any criminal activity he was specifically asked about. His lawyer indicated that Louis was interested in doing the right thing & that’s why he was sharing the information.
One constant in Louis’ story that never faltered was that when he saw police activity outside of the Grand Sutton on that Tuesday & realized that he had the details of a murder, his first reaction was to call his mother. Ironically, it was days later on Friday that Louis’ mother Rosanna Scotto reported on the arrests of James & Larry during her Fox 5’s Good Day New York.
The defense went on to present only one piece of evidence, the ring that Larry reportedly wore when the fight broke out which had a sizable dent in it & photos from earlier in the night proved that the ring had been undamaged. During his closing argument, James’ defense attorney showed a 4 minute video where James could be seen in a building elevator & then on surveillance video in Jeffrey Rackover’s bedroom, rummaging through a wall safe while Jeffrey was asleep in bed. Sercarz argued that it was during those four minutes when James was out of his apartment that Larry alone was the one to have killed Joey.
James maintained that he was out of the apartment when Joey was murdered & in a 2020 interview he said, “I wasn’t even there, I never laid my hands on Joey. I didn’t get into a fight with him or nothing.” He went on to say that it all happened very quickly over a “bunch of nothing.”
However, prosecutors argue this point by theorizing that James was in Jeffrey’s bedroom in search of cocaine & when he couldn’t find any, the fight began in apartment 4C when he came back empty-handed.
After ten days of witness testimony & evidence, the jury began their deliberations & after five hours, on November 2, 2018, they announced that they’d reached a verdict.
The former James Beaudoin of Florida, now James Rackover from New York was found guilty & convicted on all counts for the murder of Joey Comunale, including second-degree murder. The courtroom was flooded with relief & tears & Pat spoke out, thanking those that helped bring his son’s killer to justice. “I can’t wait to get these other two sons of bitches to go down, just like this a-hole. Pardon my language.”
Joey’s mother Lisa struggles to even speak of her only son because she misses him deeply each & every day. To remember & honor their friend, some of Joey’s friends got a tattoo with the number 9 which is the number Joey always wore when he played sports. Pat got the biggest tattoo of all with an image of his son’s face on his arm.
James Rackover was given the maximum sentence, 28 & ⅔ years-to-life in prison. One month later, Larry Dilione pleaded guilty to manslaughter & was sentenced to 23 years in prison. Max Gemma pleaded guilty to hindering the prosecution & tampering with evidence & was sentenced to 6 months in prison; he was released in August 2019 after serving four months.
Jeffrey Rackover moved out of the Grand Sutton in 2018 & cut all ties with James Rackover who is incarcerated in Clinton Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in the northwest corner of Dannemora, New York. To this day James maintains his innocence of the murder & insists he was only involved in the horrific aftermath.
During an interview with Pat nearly three years after his son’s tragic murder, he indicated that he visits Joey’s grave each & every day, “We talked every day. So I go talk to him every day.”
References:
- CBS News: What happened in apartment 4C? Friends of man missing in NYC use social media to track final steps
- Vanity Fair: Murder at Sutton Place
- Oxygen True Crime: A young man was murdered after NYC afterparty went wrong – but who was the killer?
- Abc 7: 1 suspect in Upper East Side murder changed name, has arrest record
