Judge Tells ‘Serial Killer’ He’s Lucky for No Death Penalty

A clothing salesman whose bloodstained duffel bag and knife were used as evidence to convict him for the 2012 slayings of three New York City shopkeepers, including two members of the Orthodox community, was sentenced Friday to 75 years to life in prison.

A jury had rendered a triple murder conviction in February against Salvatore Perrone, 67, a “cold-blooded and unrepentant serial killer” who took the lives of “three innocent, honest and hardworking business owners” — Rahmatollah Vahidipour, Hy”d, Isaac Kadare, Hy”d, and Mohamed Gebeli, said Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson.

“You’re lucky we don’t have the death penalty here in New York. You would be a prime candidate,” state Supreme Court Justice Alan Marrus told the defendant.

The killings occurred in the summer and fall of 2012. After his arrest, then-police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said there was reason to believe that Perrone may have been planning to attack again.

A police detective testified that the Staten Island resident had a bloodstained black leather duffel bag containing a sawed-off rifle, a bloody knife, screwdrivers, switchblades, bleach and a bloody handkerchief.

All three storekeepers were shot.

“My father was a dedicated, hardworking man, lived a life with dignity,” Vahidipour’s daughter, Marjan, told the defendant at sentencing. “G-d will punish you. You’re pathetic. You will rot and die alone, loser.”

Perrone said he was framed. He had a number of emotional outbursts during the trial — which occurred, the prosecution noted, when key evidence against him was being presented.

“Everything Mr. Perrone did was calculated and methodical,” Assistant District Attorney Melissa Carvajal said in February.