Trial begins Monday for the only person now charged with killing a local radio host.
Ferdinand “Freddy” Augello is accused of setting up the killing of April Kauffman to help protect an Oxycontin ring the former Pagans Motorcycle Club leader and Dr. James Kauffman allegedly set up.
The alleged shooter is dead of an overdose. The victim's husband is dead of an apparent suicide in his Hudson County Jail cell. And an admitted conspirator in the deadly plan, Andrew Glick, is now a key witness for the state, having agreed to record his friends in exchange, it appears, for leniency in a drug-and-guns case.
Five of the six co-defendants in the drug ring case have taken pleas and are on the witness list for the state, including Augello's ex-wife, Beverly Augello.
“It’s like the worst made-for-TV movie ever,” April Kauffman’s daughter, Kimberly Pack, said shortly after her stepfather was arrested in her mother’s killing.
But it was all too real.
Dr. James Kauffman was accused of having his wife killed for a variety of reasons that involved saving his “empire” and keeping him out of jail for the drug ring and possibly other illegal dealings he allegedly had his hand in.
Now, just Augello will stand trial.
Opening statements Monday morning are likely to paint two very different pictures of Augello, a guitar-loving signmaker who has used social media to help garner support for his case.
The state is expected to portray him as the leader of a violent motorcycle gang intent on keeping secret the scheme that was making him thousands. So intent, that after his alleged partner was arrested on a gun charge in June 2017, he plotted to have the doctor killed inside the Atlantic County Justice Facility.
“He was never in any danger here,” Augello told BreakingAC several times during an interview inside the jail prior to a gag order.
He rejected a plea deal in July that would have required admitting to murder and racketeering in exchange for a sentence that would be at the judge’s discretion.
"Oh, definitely not guilty," he told DeLury when he formally rejected that final deal and moved to take it to trial.
The defense is likely to question the state’s case, missing evidence, the reliability of witnesses and even the timeline of April Kauffman’s killing.
Noted pathologist Dr. Michael Baden has said with "a reasonable degree of medical certainty" that he would put her death time of death at 2:10 a.m., more than three hours before James Kauffman left his home for work. But the state has said she died after the doctor went to work.
BADEN'S FINDING
While the state originally requested Baden, they will instead be calling a medical examiner from Delaware, the fourth in the case, which includes Atlantic County’s Dr. Hydow Park, who died a couple of years ago.
A cellular location analyst on the defense’s witness list could call into question who was on the other end of a burner phone Dr. Kauffman called 322 times, stopping on the afternoon his wife was killed.
Glick is expected to be among the first to testify.
His November arrest was a break in the case.
Facing what he has said could be 40 years on drug and gun charges, the 54-year-old former Pagan offered up what he knew about April Kauffman’s killing.
Recordings Glick made are expected to be played in court, including John Drinhouser telling him that “a doctor wants to kill his wife and will pay $10,000 in cash,” according to pre-trial testimony by lead detective, Sgt. James Scoppa.
Before approving a state-requested gag order, Superior Court Judge Bernard DeLury pointed out that much of the case had been played out in the media on both sides.
He noted a “national television show,” referring to a “20/20” special that included interviews with Atlantic County Prosecutor Damon Tyner and Scoppa, who took host Deborah Roberts inside the bedroom where April Kauffman was found dead.
After the gag was imposed, all references to that were removed from the Prosecutor’s Office website and all social media pages.
No mention of the case is now on the prosecutor’s site, including the press release announcing when Kauffman, Augello and the six others were arrested in the drug ring.
While DeLury allowed for public announcements of court dates, the Prosecutor’s Office has not released anything on the case since the gag order.
