NEW YORK, NY – Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced the conviction of Gerald Griffin for the murder of a 31-year-old man found beaten and naked in his Ridgewood home in 2011.
Griffin, a 46-year-old resident of Sutter Avenue in Brooklyn, was found guilty by a jury on charges including murder in the second degree, burglary in the first degree, robbery in the first and second degrees, intimidating a witness in the third degree, attempted tampering with physical evidence, criminal possession of stolen property in the fifth degree, and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree. His sentencing is scheduled for June 15 before Queens Supreme Court Justice Ushir Pandit-Durant, where he faces a potential sentence of 25 years to life in prison for the murder conviction.
On September 14, 2011, the victim, Peter Polizzi, was discovered by his brother inside his apartment on Clover Place in Ridgewood at approximately 5:00 p.m. Polizzi was found naked and severely beaten under a couch. The apartment had been ransacked, and several items were reported missing. Polizzi succumbed to his injuries three days later.
Law enforcement officers who responded to the scene recovered a used wine glass and a blood-stained baseball bat. Through the investigation, detectives obtained information from a family friend who witnessed two men leaving the premises around 11:15 a.m. on September 14. One of the men was seen wearing a T-shirt that bore the phrase “Irving Scrap Metal.”
In 2015, the NYPD’s Cold Case Squad took over the investigation. Using phone records from the victim, they located a woman who disclosed that she was present at the apartment during the murder. The woman revealed that Griffin, who was her pimp at the time, accompanied her along with another individual. Griffin attacked Polizzi with a baseball bat while the other man also assaulted him. Following the assault, the men ransacked the apartment, taking two cell phones, money, a distinctive watch with a diamond-encrusted face, and a box containing a white powdery substance.
DNA analysis of the wine glass matched the DNA profile of the woman present at the scene. In 2017, she identified Griffin as the assailant wielding the bat from a photograph. Furthermore, a photograph on Griffin’s Facebook account showed him wearing the stolen watch. Records from Irving Scrap Metal indicated that Griffin was a customer of the company at the time of the murder.
Griffin was indicted in 2018, and after a trial, the jury found him guilty on all counts related to the murder and subsequent crimes.