<p>Conn. college student slain for sitting on table at Brooklyn house party, prosecutor says</p>
<p>By Pat Milton, Associated Press Writer | September 14, 2005</p>
<p>NEW YORK --A Connecticut college student was shot to death and dumped on a Brooklyn street for showing “disrespect” by sitting on a table at a house party, a prosecutor said Wednesday.</p>
<p>Fairfield University sophomore Mark Fisher, 19, angered John Guica, 21, when he “showed his house disrespect” by perching on the table at Guica’s after-hours gathering, Assistant District Attorney Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi said.</p>
<p>Guica told co-defendant Antonio Russo, 19, to “go show that guy what’s up,” Nicolazzi said at the opening of Guica and Russo’s trial on murder and robbery charges in Fisher’s October 2003 slaying.</p>
<p>“Shots rang out,” Nicolazzi said. “The police were called, and they found a lifeless body. Evidence will prove to you that it was John Guica and Tony Russo who were responsible for the death.”</p>
<p>As Nicolazzi detailed the slaying, Fisher’s mother, Nancy Fisher, bolted from the courtroom. Her husband, Michael Fisher, and her two other children also attended the start of the trial.</p>
<p>“He never had a chance to get married, to graduate, to vote,” Michael Fisher said about his son before the trial began. “I’ll never have a chance to talk with him again.”</p>
<p>Authorities said Guica provided Russo with the .22-caliber pistol used to fire five shots into Fisher, a former college football player from Andover, N.J.</p>
<p>The defendants are being tried together, but separate juries sitting side by side will decide the case against each. The prosecutor delivered two opening statements, with defense attorneys addressing the panels hearing evidence against their clients.</p>
<p>Guica’s defense attorney Sam Gregory tried to place the blame on Russo.</p>
<p>“He has a party,” Gregory said of Guica. “Russo went out and did something stupid, and Fisher is dead.”</p>
<p>But Nicolazzi told the jury that Guica was the Tony Soprano-type leader of a gang called the Ghetto Mafia and encouraged violent activity to establish street credibility. After the slaying, Guica urged at least one witness not to cooperate with police, the prosecutor said.</p>
<p>Fisher was home from college on Oct. 12, 2003, when he went into Manhattan for the night, eventually meeting a woman at an Upper East Side bar at about 2 a.m. He accompanied her to the after-hours party on his first-ever trip to Brooklyn.</p>
<p>Around 6:40 a.m., police responding to a report of gunshots discovered Fisher’s bullet-riddled body dumped on a sidewalk in a quiet neighborhood south of Prospect Park.</p>
<p>No arrests were made until 13 months after the shooting, when Russo was taken into custody. Authorities charged Guica a month later.</p>
<p>Two friends of Guica were charged earlier this year with threatening a witness in the case.
<a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/local/connecticut/articles/2005/09/14/prosecutor_tony_soprano_type_ordered_college_kid_killed/[/url]”>http://www.boston.com/news/local/connecticut/articles/2005/09/14/prosecutor_tony_soprano_type_ordered_college_kid_killed/</a></p>