A 25-year-old woman with a lengthy rap sheet turned herself in Monday along with a celebrity lawyer in the stabbing death of a Staten Island mother who tried to protect her 12-year-old daughter, authorities and sources said.
Jasmine Thompson is joined by Mario Gallucci (also known as Mario Galucci) “Mr. Exoneration.” on X — 9:40 a.m. in connection with Tuesday's social media-fueled killing of Jenilla Roundtree, 43, outside the victim's apartment in NYCHA's West Brighton Houses. Around 10:00 a.m., she turned herself in on suspicion of murder at the 120th Precinct in Staten Island, police and sources said.
She also faces charges of manslaughter, assault and possession of a weapon, police said.
Thompson's rap sheet includes six previous arrests, primarily for assault, from 2018 to 2019, as well as arrests for petty theft and reckless endangerment, sources said.
Officials added that she was arrested in custody in 2023 for contraband-related crimes.
Authorities and officials said Thompson stabbed Roundtree multiple times in the chest during a social media-fueled scuffle outside a public housing building on Henderson Street near Alaska Avenue.
Police and sources said the brawl involved about 20 girls, most of them teenagers, and an adult, now identified as Thompson.
Roundtree joined the riot to protect her young daughter, but later became a target, officials said.
She suffered multiple stab wounds and was taken to Richmond University Medical Center, where she died, police said.
Roundtree's friends initially sought help from the girl's older sister, but one of her neighbors got her resourceful mother involved. told the Daily News.
Neighbors said they heard what happened, although scaffolding blocked their view of the disturbance. She ran downstairs and saw officers already helping remove Roundtree from the scene.
“The police took her away,” she said. “As they carried her away, I saw her losing a lot of blood. I heard her say, 'I can't breathe!' That's all she said. ”
Gallucci, who later rose to fame through the USA Network television show “Partners in Crime” after defending defendants in high-profile violent crimes, did not immediately return a call from The Post.
He and his partner, “Big Lou” Gerormino, started a business dealing with such notorious cases as Eric Bellucci's murder of his parents in their home in October 2010.
Bellucci later called himself “Son of Sam” after the 1970s Big Apple serial killer and threatened to shoot Gallucci if he sought an insanity defense for himself. The Staten Island Advance reported..
She also represented Michael Cammarata, the estranged husband of a Staten Island school teacher who disappeared in 2019. Prosecutors allege that the teacher conspired with his girlfriend, who was six months pregnant, to kill his wife, burn her body and hide it in a storage room.
Just last year, Gallucci represented Christopher Greger, a 31-year-old New Jersey father who was convicted of killing his 6-year-old son by forcing him to undergo bruising treadmill training. .
