Healthy'N'Fit Owner Charged With Murder

The owner of a bodybuilding supplements business accused in the baseball-bat bludgeoning of his live-in lover last month appeared yesterday in ankle chains and handcuffs to inform a judge that he had switched defense attorneys.

Robert Sepe, 53, owner of Healthy 'N Fit International in Croton-on-Hudson, appeared briefly in Cortlandt Town Court. When asked by Justice Gerald Klein if the murder suspect wanted to change attorneys, he said, "Yes."

Sepe's new attorney, Bruce Bendish, did not enter a plea for Sepe, who is accused of beating live-in girlfriend Janette Carlucci so badly with a metal baseball bat that she had to be identified days later through dental records.

Nor did the new attorney ask the judge to set bail.

Sepe has been held in Westchester County jail in Valhalla since March 22, when the Cortlandt man's two sons found blood on carpet in their father's home and called police. Officers immediately began looking for Sepe and his white Cadillac Escalade.

They found it that night at a highway overpass in Binghamton where a disturbed Sepe kept police at bay for five hours while holding a knife and threatening to jump from the bridge.

Meanwhile, at the Quaker Hill Road home he shared with the 41-year-old victim, a former program coordinator at Jacobi Medical Center and the mother of a 17-year-old girl, police removed a metal bat, among other evidence.

Because of the brutality of the crime and the fact that Sepe's company sells supplements such as Advanced Steroidal Complex, and Anabolic Muscle, observers have wondered whether steroid abuse was a factor.

Police have said only that they were investigating that along with other aspects of the slaying.
The Westchester County District Attorney's Office planned to present the case as soon as today to a grand jury to see if there is enough evidence to take it to trial.

"We will wait to see what the indictment says and we will proceed accordingly," Bendish said.

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Source and Photo Credit: LoHud.com

Author: Rob Ryser