Queens, NY – Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced today the sentencing of Gerald Griffin, 46, of Sutter Avenue, Brooklyn, to 25 years-to-life in prison for the 2011 murder of 31-year-old Peter Polizzi. Polizzi was found naked and bludgeoned in his Ridgewood apartment.
District Attorney Katz stated that justice has been served, and the victim’s family will finally have some closure.
Griffin was convicted in May on multiple counts, including three counts of second-degree murder, first-degree burglary, and robbery. The sentence was imposed by Queens Supreme Court Justice Ushir Pandit-Durant.
According to the charges and trial testimony, Peter Polizzi was discovered by his brother badly beaten and hidden under a couch in his apartment on September 14, 2011. Various items were missing from the ransacked apartment, and Polizzi died three days later. Officers recovered a bloody baseball bat and a used wine glass from the crime scene.
The NYPD’s Cold Case Squad took over the case in 2015. Through phone records, detectives found a woman who was in the apartment during the murder. The woman identified Griffin as her pimp and one of the assailants. DNA from the wine glass matched the woman’s profile.
Griffin was indicted in 2018. Additional evidence linking him to the crime included a photograph of him wearing the stolen watch and business records from Irving Scrap Metal, connecting him to the company at the time of the murder.