Story Archive

Acting Innocent

“You could be out in six months,” said New Jersey Judge Alberto Rivas, talking up the plea offer Carlo Bellario was rejecting, but the 48-year-old Toms River comedian insisted on a trial. Bellario was acting in a movie being shot on location when police came on the scene. “They get called that there is a guy with a gun,” he said. “They don’t know what they are driving into.” Bellario was the guy with the gun. “My job was to hang out of the window and pretend to shoot.” The gun was a CO2 pellet gun, but New Jersey law calls that a real gun, which could get Bellario a 5-year sentence — and because of his past convictions, another decade or more could be added under a law that targets ex-convicts who possess guns. (AC/Newark Star-Ledger) ...The comedian’s lawyer is trying to make the jury laugh the prosecutor out of court.