A former Las Vegas lawyer who killed his ex-wife decades ago and was sentenced to life without parole told the Nevada Board of Pardons on Tuesday that he was remorseful for what he previously insisted was a self-defense killing.
The sister of the victim did not buy it.
“I don’t believe for a second that you are remorseful or now taking responsibility for this,” said Lisa Lattarulo, addressing Alfred “Chip” Centofanti III directly. She added that he had spent years using post-conviction litigation to try to skirt accountability.
“It’s never-ending,” she said. “We’ve had to always be on top of it. We’ve never been able to rest. To me, this is just his latest attempt at trying to avoid what happened.”
The board unanimously denied a pardon or commutation for Centofanti after hearing from her and other speakers.
Now 57 and an inmate at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center, Centofanti was sentenced to life without parole in 2005 after being convicted of first-degree murder.
He had hoped to receive a pardon, and there are no additional steps that he can take, his attorney Lisa Rasmussen said after the meeting.
He shot his 25-year-old ex-wife, Gina Eisenman, seven times in December 2000 and previously claimed he acted in self-defense, even though she was unarmed, according to prior Las Vegas Review-Journal coverage.
Four of his shots were to the torso and three to the head, evidence at his trial showed. The killing occurred days after the couple’s divorce was finalized.
Centofanti’s version
Centofanti acknowledged to the pardon board that he committed murder by shooting Eisenman multiple times.
“I take full and complete responsibility for my actions and what I did on that day,” he said. “I took Gina, not just in that moment from everybody, but forever. Gina did not deserve to die. There is no excuse or justification for what happened, and I offer none. I apologize to her family, her friends and her loved ones.”
He said he also regretted going to trial and wished he had apologized at his sentencing, when he instead chose not to speak.
Under questioning from Nevada Supreme Court justices who serve on the pardons board, he outlined his version of the fatal shooting.
That day, he said, he and his ex-wife were exchanging custody of their son. Eisenman was picking up their then-4-month-old child for visitation, the Review-Journal previously reported.
“She showed up late, we got into an argument, and when she reached for what turned out to be her phone, I mistook that for a gun, and I shot her,” said Centofanti.
Chief Justice Douglas Herndon noted later in the meeting that prosecutors said blood spatter experts indicated Eisenman’s head was on or near the ground when the shots were fired to her head.
Centofanti denied that she was shot in the head at close range while she was on the ground.
“I believe all the shots occurred as she was either standing or falling to the ground,” he said.
‘This is a domestic violence murder’
Chief Deputy District Attorney Shanon Clowers said Centofanti’s narrative “left something to be desired.”
The Metropolitan Police Department had taken the couple’s guns weeks before the murder after a domestic dispute in which Eisenman was arrested.
Clowers said Centofanti called Metro repeatedly to recover the guns, picked them up and loaded them. Eisenman had tried to reschedule the pickup of their son, but Centofanti insisted she come over to his home, she said.
“He lured her to this location, and he executed her,” she said.
No one other than Centofanti heard him arguing with his ex-wife, according to Clowers. He knew she was unarmed because he had recovered the guns that police impounded, the prosecutor said. She said Eisenman did not pull a gun in the prior incident, but was arrested for slamming a picture frame over Centofanti’s head.
Rasmussen said Eisenman did previously pull a gun on her client.
“I don’t know that makes any of this OK, but I think it’s context, and I think it provides a backdrop to what was happening at the time,” she said.
Clowers saw the situation differently.
“What this really, truly amounts to is somebody who wanted to leave a relationship and somebody else who was upset about that person leaving that relationship,” she said. “This is a domestic violence relationship. This is a domestic violence murder.”
Herndon said he believed the board could not commute a life without parole sentence.
Even if the law allowed the board to do so, he said, he could not support a commutation for what the jury correctly saw as a pre-planned murder and the original judge accurately described as an execution.
“I don’t feel that your statement here today is fully appreciating and taking accountability for that,” he said to Centofanti, adding that the inmate was “still trying to characterize this as some type of self-defense when all of the objective facts make me view this as a planned execution of this woman.”
Supporters of Centofanti
Centofanti has stage four lymphoma but is in remission and has been a model inmate who does not pose a risk if released, Rasmussen argued.
A diverse group of supporters besides the attorney also spoke on Centofanti’s behalf.
Nicholas Centofanti, son of Centofanti and Eisenman, was a baby at the time his father killed his mother.
He said he was adopted by his father’s parents after the murder, but that his grandfather now suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and requires his constant care. His life is on pause because of those responsibilities, he said, and he believes his father would help if released.
He said his father’s actions had left a cloud over his life but still asked the pardons board to provide mercy.
“I believe the proper action today and the merciful action is to release my father,” he said.
Peter Schulz, an attorney in San Diego, also spoke in support of Centofanti. The two became friends after meeting on the first day of law school at the California Western School of Law, he said.
He indicated that he would be willing to hire Centofanti — who was disbarred in 2004 — as a case manager if his friend was released.
Edward Preciado, a former FBI agent convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the 2008 killing of his son’s girlfriend, said Centofanti was in high demand in prison because of his legal experience and helped hundreds of inmates.
“I have seen both sides of the law, and I guarantee you, Mr. Centofanti, Chip, will never go back to prison” if released, Preciado said.
‘I lost out on my sister’
Lattarulo, the victim’s sister, said Centofanti deserved to serve out his sentence.
“I lost out on my sister,” she said. Her children and her brother’s children were never able to meet her. She said after the board’s decision that she thinks constantly about where her sister would be in life had she not been killed.
She described Eisenman as a “bright shining star to everyone who met her.”
Rasmussen said after the meeting that she respected Lattarulo’s feelings.
“I also wish we could look at the effort that people have made to make changes in their life, and I don’t think that was enough today, unfortunately,” said the attorney.
Though they took different positions at the pardon meeting, Lattarulo said she is close with Nicholas Centofanti.
“I wish I had more clemency in my heart, but I just can’t,” said Lattarulo to her sister’s killer. “The circumstances of what you did and immediately following and in the years since have never let any wound heal.”
Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com.
