Sep 21, 2008 8:41 am US/Eastern
October Trial Set For 'Sopranos' Actor Brancato
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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Lillo Brancato Jr., a former actor in movies like "A Bronx Tale" and on the hit HBO series "The Sopranos," will head to court in October.
AP
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A moving memorial was held for Officer Daniel Enchautegui following his murder in December of 2005.
CBS
"Sopranos" actor Lillo Brancato Jr. is set to go to trial Oct. 28 in the murder of an off-duty New York City police officer.
A Bronx judge ruled Friday that Brancato and co-defendant Steven Armento would be tried separately, rejecting prosecutors' request to try the two together.
Authorities said the two broke into an apartment to look for prescription drugs in December 2005. Officer Daniel Enchautegui confronted them and was killed in a shootout. Armento is accused of firing the fatal shot.
Brancato has said he didn't know Armento had a gun.
Armento is set for trial Sept. 29. His lawyer has said Armento was heavily medicated when he gave statements to police, though doctors have contradicted that claim.
"There's a saiding in Italian, I'll said it in English: 'When the devil caresses you he wants your soul,'" Brancato told CBS 2HD in an exclusive interview. "I'm not the monster that they portray me as in newspapers, a cold-blooded killer and all of that. I'm not that person at all."
He said his devil was cocaine. It led him to a cell on Rikers Island, awaiting trial for Enchautegui's murder.
"I know in my heart I was in no way responsible for the death of that police officer," Brancato said.
Brancato
is a self-confessed drug addict who got his first movie role at age 16
and starred in "A Bronx Tale," opposite Hollywood heavyweights Robert
De Niro and Chazz Palminteri.
"The first time I ever got high smoking pot, really it was the first drug I ever did, it was on film," said Brancato.
Brancato remembers being so high during a scene in "A Bronx Tale" that he could hardly speak.
A year later he was using cocaine and battled addiction for the next 12 years.
"There
was times I was sober, one and a half or two months, worked so hard to
get to that point and just out of nowhere something comes over you,"
Brancato said.
Brancato said drugs would have killed him had he not landed in jail, and he's thought a lot about the night the cop was killed.
"There is a God and he knows what was in my mind and in my heart that night," Brancato said.
There
are many out there who believe Brancato has put out some of his best
acting during this entire ordeal, but he said that's hardly the case.
"I've
been through so much this is definitely not an act," Brancato said.
"This is my life and it's not in the best place right now."
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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