Saturday, November 12, 2022 – The ex-boyfriend of a killer 'lady of the night' who slipped a fatal drug into a drink has gotten 32 months behind bars for his role in the death of one of her victims, a prominent New York Italian chef.
Queens, New York, escort Angelina Barini drugged her clients in a well planned scheme to rob them.
On Thursday, November 10, her former boyfriend, Leslie Lescano was sentenced in Brooklyn Federal Court.
Lescano, 46, helped Barini lure Cipriani Dolci head chef, Andrea Zamperoni to a room in the Kamway Lodge in Elmhurst, Queens, on Aug. 18, 2019 where he died after drinking a deadly “liquid ecstasy” cocktail, according to federal prosecutors.
The 33-year-old chef was the fourth and final victim of Barini’s deadly drugging spree.
The 'lady of the night' gave fatal doses of fentanyl-laced drugs to three men on July 4, July 11 and Aug. 5, 2019.
Barini, 44, was sentenced to 30 years behind bars in April.
Lescano’s defense lawyer, Jeremy Schneider, argued that his client had no idea what he was getting into when he rented the motel room for Barini.
According to Lescano, he was just hoping to have 'fun' with her, and knew nothing about her scheme, Schneider said.
“He was a dupe. He was a sucker, just like every other man Barini used and lied to,” the attorney said. “He was just like them.”
But Judge Brian Cogan, said he couldn’t see how Lescano was oblivious to Barini’s intentions, especially since he heard she made her living drugging and robbing clients, and that one of them had died.
“You knew Barini. You knew what you were dealing with,” Cogan said.
Lescano hid in the bathroom on Barini’s orders as she and Zamperoni walked in, and waited for the chef to pass out from the date-r*pe drug that was mixed into his drink, prosecutors said.
Barini planned to rob Zamperoni two days in advance and messaged Lescano on Facebook, “I got a biznes opratunady for ya. I cute to the chase then i am willing to pay for ur sevces.”
Using the Facebook name “Ken Ween,” he responded, “Yes my queen.”
Barini told Lescano that she was kicked from a hotel in Manhattan, was in trouble because she robbed a drug dealer, and told him, “Come get me daddy.”
After Zamperoni passed out, Lescano used the Italian immigrant’s credit card and went on a “multiple-day shopping spree,” prosecutors said in a sentencing memo filed last month.
He bought groceries using the chef’s cards, and tried to withdraw Zamperoni’s money at a casino, according to prosecutors.
NYPD officers knocked on the hotel room door on Aug. 21, 2019, and perceived the stench of rotting flesh and burning incense
Police found Zamperoni’s corpse, wrapped in bleached sheets and stuffed in a garbage can, one foot sticking out, in the corner of the motel room.
Barini blurted out that “her pimp made her do it,” according to court documents, and the
In court Thursday, Lescano tried to make his case to Judge Cogan.
“I just want you to know that I’m a good person,” pleaded Lescano, who worked as an ice sculptor, restaurant service worker and taxi driver to raise money for his wife and children in the Philippines.
“I came to America, and I’ve been working hard all my life,” he told the judge.
Judge Cogan said that even if Lescano rented the room because he thought they would have an “encounter,” he should have eventually figured out she was going to drug and rob someone.
“By the time she told him to go in the bathroom, he knew that she was going to take advantage of a john. It’s the only reason for him to go into the bathroom,” the judge said. “I just can’t avoid making the conclusion that he knew something untoward was going to happen to the victim that could well entail the use of dangerous or fatal drugs.”
If he hadn’t figured it out by then, Cogan said, “It’s the same to me as willful blindness.”
Lescano pleaded guilty in April to a single count of conspiracy to distribute and possess the drug, gamma-butyrolactone, or GBL.
Prosecutors were asking for five years behind bars, while Schneider asked the judge to sentence Lescano to time served. He argued that Lescano didn’t know Zamperoni died, and couldn’t have known that Barini was asking for help disposing of the body.
Cogan said he was factoring in the well-documented atrocious conditions at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn during the COVID pandemic when he made his decision, telling Lescano, “It would be higher if not for the MDC.” Lescano has already served 20 months behind bars after his arrest, so with good behavior he could be out in less than a year. He faces the prospect of deportation after his release, Cogan said.
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