Bizarre Shooting Trial Comes to an Inconclusive End

It was a peculiar trial from the beginning.

Attorneys for two brothers charged in the robbery and shooting of an armored car guard contended that the investigating officer in the case had sex with the defendant’s wife. The wife, a key witness for the prosecution, changed the story that she had told in the preliminary hearing. And the victim identified the wrong man as his assailant.

In the end, though, jurors said none of that made the difference in the 11-1 deadlock that ended the Pasadena Superior Court trial of Alfred Anthony Giordano last week. Two days earlier, the same jury had acquitted Giordano’s brother, Peter Paul Giordano, of all the charges against him. But the unwavering stance of a single juror kept the jury from reaching a verdict on Alfred Giordano.

Eleven of the jurors voted to convict Alfred Giordano of attempted murder and attempted robbery in the holdup and shooting that left the armored car guard paralyzed. A single juror, however, wouldn’t budge from his belief in the testimony of a friend of Alfred Giordano who said he was with her at the time of the holdup, jurors said.

Because the jury was unable to reach a verdict, Judge Terry Smerling reluctantly declared a mistrial May 11.

Brothers Accused

The judge’s action brought an inconclusive end to the five-week trial of the two brothers. The Giordanos were charged with attempted murder and attempted robbery in the Dec. 31, 1987, Glendale shooting. Alfred Giordano was accused of pulling the trigger in the failed heist outside Valley Check Cashiers, 6344 San Fernando Road. Peter Giordano was accused of driving the getaway car.

The prosecutor in the case, Deputy Dist. Atty. Jo Ann Glidden, acknowledged after the trial that the case against Peter Giordano was weak. Although witnesses provided a partial license-plate number and a description, which led to a car owned by Peter Giordano, witnesses said they did not get a good look at the man who drove the gunman away from the holdup scene.

The prosecution had compiled formidable evidence against his brother, however.

One witness testified that he saw Alfred Giordano shoot the armored car guard. Two more testified that they saw him walking calmly away from the scene of the shooting holding an assault-type weapon by his side. One witness testified that Alfred Giordano told her he was planning the crime, and Giordano’s wife testified that he confided to her a few days after the incident that he had shot the guard.

But three jury members interviewed after the trial said that the prosecution’s evidence had nothing to do with the decision of one juror to vote to acquit Alfred Giordano. They said the juror, Stanley W. Stuart, told the other 11 that he believed just one witness, the last one called by the defense. The witness, Joanne Russell, is a former girlfriend of Alfred Giordano who testified that the accused gunman was having breakfast with her at her Placienta home at the time of the shooting.

“We couldn’t get the other juror to change his mind; he couldn’t see it our way so we had to give up,” juror Louise G. Lingren said. “We tried, we tried very hard.”

Stuart refused to comment on the deliberations.

Clustered around Glidden outside the courtroom after the verdict was read, the other members of the jury apologized to the prosecutor for their inability to sway the holdout.

“We just want you to tell Mr. White we did everything we could,” one juror said, referring to the armored car guard, Howard White. White, shot five times with a 9-millimeter, semiautomatic Uzi, testified from a wheelchair at the trial.

“At some point, each one of us put on your shoes,” the jurors said to Glidden.

The trial was marked by bizarre turnabouts in the testimony of witnesses and by charges by defense attorneys that the Glendale Police Department investigation that led to the arrest of their clients was badly conducted and tainted by impropriety.

Wife Testifies

Alfred Giordano’s attorney, Robert W. Swanson, called Kimberly Giordano to testify first at a pretrial hearing and again in front of the jury that the police officer who led the investigation, Joseph Jiminez, had an affair with her. Swanson also argued that Jiminez arranged for money to be paid to elicit her testimony.

Kimberly Giordano had testified at a preliminary hearing that her husband told her in the days after the shooting that he had shot an armored car guard. Testifying under subpoena at the trial, she reluctantly corroborated much of her earlier testimony. But she changed her story in one respect. At the preliminary hearing, she testified that she saw her husband bury a gun in their back yard a few nights after the shooting. At the trial, she said she had never seen her husband bury the gun.

Kimberly Giordano also testified at the trial that she had received money from Jiminez two days before she testified against her husband and again several months after the preliminary hearing.

But under questioning from Glidden, Jiminez said that the payments were approved by his superiors at the Glendale Police Department and by Sectran Security Co., which offered a $5,000 reward. The payments were an advance for the reward money offered by the armored car company for the apprehension of the guard’s assailant.

The allegations against Jiminez sparked an internal police investigation and much public scrutiny about the actions of the Glendale Police Department investigator. But jury members said they weren’t swayed by the accusations.

“As far as most of us were concerned, the case didn’t hinge on anything to do with Jiminez,” juror Robert Robison said. “We felt that the case was so strong that you could probably hang the case on Kimberly’s testimony about the confession and stop there.”

Peter Giordano was released last week from Los Angeles County Jail, where Alfred Giordano remains in custody. Glidden said she was evaluating whether to try Alfred Giordano again.