MONTREAL - Adele Sorella, the Mobster’s ex-wife convicted on June 24 of murdering her two daughters, has decided to appeal.
In a motion filed Thursday in the Quebec Court of Appeal of Quebec, Sorella’s lawyer Pierre Poupart criticized Justice Carol Cohen, saying she erred on several counts.
Poupart argued that Cohen should not have allowed a videotaped statement 47-year-old Sorella gave to police to be entered into evidence.
He also said she improperly instructed the jury on issues surrounding the concept of reasonable doubt and certainty and unanimity of the jury to reach a verdict.
The criminal lawyer said the guilty verdicts were unreasonable and not based on evidence.
The two victims, Amanda, 9, and Sabrina, 8, were found dead by their grandmother in the basement of the family’s home in Laval in March 2009.
The bodies, lying side by side, had no marks of violence on them. Their mother was away from home when the bodies were discovered. She was arrested 12 hours later, following a car crash.
The cause of death of the two children has never been established with certainty, but the Crown argued the hypothesis that that died via oxygen deprivation through the use of a hyperbaric chamber, which Sorella owner to treat Sabrina’s health problems.
Sorella’s ex-husband, convicted Mobster Giuseppe De Vito, testified that he was an absentee father, partly to blame for the death of his two children. De Vito said that in the fall of 2006, he went on the run from police, after escaping a raid on the Mafia that year, leaving behind his depressed wife and daughters.
He died in prison two weeks ago while serving a 15-year sentence for drug trafficking.
With a report from The Canadian Press
