Gerard Capano pleads in gun case

WILMINGTON - Gerard Capano, whose testimony helped prosecutors convict his older brother Thomas in one of Delaware's most notorious murder cases, pleaded guilty yesterday to illegal possession of a weapon.

Capano, who is barred from having weapons because of a 1999 felony firearms conviction, pleaded guilty to possessing a muzzle loader.

In exchange for the guilty plea, prosecutors dropped eight other weapons charges and agreed not to seek a sentence of more than six months in prison.

Capano, 43, is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 5.

Capano was indicted in May on nine felony counts after a March raid at his Greenville home. Police seized three rifles, three shotgun shells, gunpowder, other gun accessories, and bows and arrows.

New Castle County police seized the weapons while investigating allegations that Capano had sexually assaulted a woman at his home. No charges were filed in the alleged sexual assault because of inconsistencies in the woman's statements.

The 1999 conviction that prohibits Capano from owning weapons came in a plea bargain after he admitted that he helped dump the body of Thomas Capano's mistress, gubernatorial aide Anne Marie Fahey, into the ocean off the New Jersey coast.

Thomas Capano, once a wealthy and politically connected lawyer, was sentenced to death for Fahey's 1996 murder. Prosecutors said he shot Fahey, 30, stuffed her body in a cooler, and dumped it into the Atlantic because she was breaking off an affair with him.

After the state Supreme Court overturned his death sentence last year, Thomas Capano was sentenced to life without parole.