A down-on-his luck ex-con stabbed a Long Island CVS worker to death during a botched Christmas Day robbery because he was $25,000 in debt and desperate for cash, prosecutors said Wednesday.
John Pilaccio, 43, allegedly confessed to cops that he attacked 23-year-old Edeedson Cine because he refused to turn over the money — so he stabbed him in the chest, jumped the counter, and slashed him in the head, prosecutors said as the accused killer was arraigned on a first-degree murder charge.
“The life of Edeedson Cine was brutally taken,” Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Eric Aboulafia said in court. “The motivation was simply for money — he is $25,000 in debt.
“The evidence is beyond overwhelming.”
Pilaccio had six prior arrests — five of them on felony charges — and did nine years in state prison for beating a store clerk with a tire iron during an armed robbery 20 years ago — for just $50.
Surveillance video shows Pilaccio walking into the store shortly before 7 p.m. wearing a tan coat and a dark scarf, grabbing a bottle of Gatorade from the fridge before walking up to the counter with a knife.
After a quick exchange, the suspect lunges at Cine and stabs him in the chest, then jumps over the counter and plunges the knife into the helpless victim’s head twice before running from the scene.
Aboulafia said Cine “never showed signs of life” after the attack, but was rushed to Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center in West Islip, where he was pronounced dead.
Relatives said the young clerk was only on the job because he took the shift of a coworker so they could be home with their families on Christmas.
Police tracked Pilaccio to is home in Lindenhurst the following day, and he agreed to be questioned — and allegedly admitted he was in the store after being shown the video footage, prosecutors said. Officials did not say to whom he owed $25,000 or how he got in debt.
Suffolk County DA Ray Tierney said his office charged Pilaccio with first-degree murder — a rarity in similar cases — rather than just the second-degree murder raps because of unique circumstances.
Under state law, a first-degree murder charge is typically reserved for accused cop killers, murder for hire cases, or for defendants accused of torturing victims while committing murder.
“It’s just the elements of the crime,” Tierney told reporters Wednesday. “There are specific circumstances in which, under the law, we’re able to seek a murder in the first degree charge. The circumstances in this case that would apply would be the robbery motivation, which resulted in the death of the victim.”
Pilaccio was released in 2015 on parole — with Tierney calling his release “a joke.”
“A number of the laws that have been passed have really made our whole system a joke,” he said.
Meanwhile, a lawyer for the Cine family slammed CVS for allegedly delaying release of the security video.
“Why did it take so long for critical evidence to be turned over to law enforcement who are here to assist the community?” attorney Heather Palmore said. “The second component of this question goes to, could CVS have done more to protect his employee?
“The reality is, we can walk into a CVS right now, and I can’t buy a bar of soap without asking someone at the front to unlock the product,” Palmore said. ” But where’s the safety and the protection for those who work there?”
A rep for CVS told The Post Wednesday that the company was devastated over the incident and called Cine “a hard-working and dedicated employee,” while defending their handling of the security footage.
“We provided the initial surveillance video they requested on the night of the incident – officers also watched it in store – and the remaining video the police requested was sent to Suffolk County PD [the morning after the crime] via email” the rep said.
