Day Three: Hereford House trial is juicy, but not exactly sizzling…
The third day of the federal trial against restaurateur Rod Anderson and his alleged co-conspirators — Vincent Pisciotta and Mark Sorrentino — had plenty of meat, including a revelation from the chief financial officer of the company that owned the downtown Hereford House, James Stanislav, when he told the jury that Anderson told him, soon after the 2008 fire that destroyed the restaurant, “I might have to go to jail.”
Anderson, Pisciotta and Sorretino face four counts of felony fraud, conspiracy and arson. The prosecution alleges that the men planned and executed the arson that destroyed the original Hereford House restaurant, at 2 East 20th Street, in the early morning hours of October 20, 2008.
Two former Hereford House employees also testified this afternoon: Tom Brooks, a general manager and director of operations for the downtown Hereford House until 2008 (when asked if he was currently employed, Brooks said, “I make hamburgers”), and Aaron Ray Rose, who was another Hereford House general manager until he was terminated in August 2008. After Rose left the restaurant company, he continued to receive phone calls from the security company operating the downtown restaurant’s security system, and, according to the government’s case against the plaintiffs, Anderson gave Rose’s still-active security code to Pisciotta and Sorrentino to use to enter the Hereford House on the evening of October 19, 2008, in order to burn the building down.
