A Broward County man serving a 41-year prison sentence for the murder of a wealthy Coconut Grove businessman is fighting a rare battle for exoneration.

Anthony Caracciolo and his attorneys began presenting their case this week in federal court to prove he was not one of three hit men Coconut Grove socialite Joyce Cohen hired to kill her husband, Stanley, in 1986.

The case involving mobsters, a notorious home-invasion gang, drug dealers and a former local TV reporter made national headlines and was the subject of a true crime book: The Fast Lane.

Caracciolo, 44, once of Hallandale Beach, pleaded no contest to second-degree murder. So did driver Thomas Lamberti, who was sentenced to 30 years. Joyce Cohen, whom a jury in 1989 convicted of murdering her husband, is serving a life sentence. She also plans to appeal her conviction.

Prosecutors said Cohen paid Frank Zuccarello and the two other men $100,000 to kill her husband. The prominent builder was fatally shot at close range while sleeping in his Coconut Grove home. Police found him naked in his brass bed with four bullet wounds to be back of the head.

Attorneys unsuccessfully appealed Caracciolo’s 1991 conviction in the state courts, arguing he was coerced by the manipulations and false testimony of Zuccarello.

But in May, U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan issued a final order granting the rare “innocence” hearing, in which Caracciolo can assert that he was wrongfully convicted and that his constitutional rights were violated.

“Nobody would have guessed we would be here after so many years,” said Caracciolo’s attorney, Rhonda Anderson.

Anderson argues that her client was largely convicted on the untruthful word of Zuccarello, who had been convicted of home invasion robbery and kidnapping. Zuccarello was sentenced to five years after cooperating with authorities investigating the murder.

Zuccarello told investigators that he, Caracciolo and Lamberti were part of a South Florida home-invasion gang that targeted drug dealers in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. Zuccarello said that Joyce Cohen hired the three men to kill her husband.

Investigators never found physical evidence linking the three men to the shooting. But Anderson said prosecutors with the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office used Zuccarello’s accounts to coerce her client to plea guilty, rather than risk a stiffer sentence at a trial. The case remained dormant after Joyce Cohen’s sensational trial, and Zuccarello’s story remained unchallenged until 1998. That’s when former WPLG-Ch. 10 reporter Gail Bright came forward after five years of silence to say that the lead detective in the Cohen case once confided to her that he didn’t believe Zuccarello’s story.

Bright testified this week that retired Miami Police Detective Jon Spear told her during an off-the-record interview that he believed the three men were not even at Cohen’s home.

“Spear told me that if I told anyone, he’ll deny it,” Bright testified.

Her cameraman, Mario Hernandez, also took the stand and corroborated Bright’s account.

After Bright came forward, Joyce Cohen’s defense team began rounding up witnesses to challenge Zuccarello’s credibility. They included former Broward Sheriff’s Office Maj. Tony Fantigrassi, who testified this week that Zuccarello once admitted that he falsely implicated another man in a different murder case to get a lenient plea deal.

In his 1999 sworn statement, Steve Emerson, an investigator with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said that he could not corroborate Zuccarello’s story and warned prosecutors against using him as a witness.

State prosecutors maintain that they did not need Zuccarello’s testimony to win any of the murder convictions. They plan to begin presenting their own witnesses, including Spear, starting on Monday.

If Caracciolo is successful, his case could be reopened in state court. However, Eric Zeid, a private investigator working with Caracciolo’s defense team, said Caracciolo could be released early from prison in a few years.

“This isn’t so much about his freedom, but clearing his name,” said Zeid.

Ihosvani Rodriguez can be reached at or 305-810-5005.