Alberto Scabone is 70 years old and has to serve another nine years in prison before he’s eligible for parole for killing his wife, and her sister and mother, in Newark in 1981.
He now represents himself, and he’s still appealing what he believes is an excessive sentence - 80 years, with a mandatory minimum of 40.
His latest appeal, issued Thursday, failed. The two judges dispatched his arguments in stark form: “Defendant’s sentence is not illegal.”
And they ended it with, “The record establishes that defendant has been accorded all the process he is due.”
Looking at his appeal history, an appeal of this appeal could happen.
Legal filings and news stories portray Scabone as someone who will not stop trying. And also a brutal, controlling killer with a history of escapes.
At the age of 39, he stabbed his wife Monica, 22, and her mother Norma Estevez, 39, and Monica’s sister, 17-year-old Yannet Estevez. The three suffered a total of 90 wounds. Then he set fire to their Bloomfield Avenue apartment and fled to Mexico with his 2-year-old son.
A prosecutor later said a jealous Scabone killed his wife because he didn’t like her dressing up and going out at night. He murdered the in-laws to aid his escape.
Essex County authorities indicted him for murder and arson, but it would be 12 years before the FBI could bring him back to U.S. soil.
A native of Uruguay, Scabone moved around while on the run, in Central and South America, authorities said.
Just two weeks after the Newark slayings, Scabone started dating a woman in Costa Rica, who he would eventually marry. He also played professional soccer and traveled with a team in South America.
With the FBI constantly on his tail, Scabone successfully eluded local authorities twice: he escaped from a Costa Rica prison in 1989 while awaiting extradition, and gave local cops the slip by jumping out of a window in Mexico while with his second wife.
Things did not work out with the second wife, and she would eventually inform on him and lead to his arrest. U.S. agents tracked Scabone in Florida, Uruguay, Argentina and in the end, Mexico, who put the handcuffs on him.
He landed in the United States in early 1993. (No news story or legal filing ever explained his son’s whereabouts).
While awaiting trial, Scabone planned to escape from the county jail and officers found him with a homemade knife and lock pick in the inner soles of his shoes.
A jury convicted him later that year of two counts of murder for his in-laws, and passion provocation manslaughter of his wife, plus arson. A judge in 1994 sentenced him to an aggregate of 80 years using consecutive sentences, rather than the typical concurrent sentences.
The trial judge said they were essentially three separate murders, committed as each woman entered the apartment. And Scabone needed to pay, “so he can’t do [any more] damage to the community,” the decision says.
Scabone then started regular appeals, first to challenge the case, then mainly to undo the consecutive sentences.
First came the regular, or direct, appeals. Then post-conviction relief, or PCR, during which defendants seek relief from the trial court that handled their case. All of those were denied. The state supreme court then declined to hear it.
Scabone went to the federal system, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take the case.
Then, Scabone filed four motions with the trial court alleging that his sentence was illegal, the latest decision says. The first two were in 2004 and 2005, and they were denied, as well as appeals of the denials.
A third occurred in 2018, and Scabone did not appeal that.
In November 2022, Scabone filed his fourth motion to correct an alleged illegal sentence, arguing cruel and unusual punishment. It was denied, and Thursday’s appeal rejected it again.
The appeals court did filter his case through all applicable case law and found his original sentences, “were in accordance with the criminal code in effect at the time defendant committed his crimes.”
Scabone is currently in East Jersey State Prison, records show. His parole will be considered in February of 2033.
Material from prior Star-Ledger news stories was used in this report.
Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription. Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com.
