Adriana Pagano, wife of slain Cranston Fire Department Lt. James Pagano, reads an impact statement before the sentencing of Nicholas Gianquitti.

The Providence Journal / Steve Szydlowski

PROVIDENCE — They wanted Nicholas Gianquitti to see it all clearly.

Their pain. The void left by the death of James Pagano, a Cranston Fire Department lieutenant. The destruction of two families. The void left in so many lives the day that Gianquitti shot Pagano, his next-door neighbor.

“I hope that every day you spend behind bars you will think of our family and community and what you have done,” Adriana Pagano, his widow, said to Gianquitti at his sentencing Thursday. “We are devastated but not totally beyond repair. Jim’s legacy is precious and will live on forever. You, Nicholas Gianquitti, are a coward and a murderer and will be forgotten about in weeks.”

Superior Court Judge Robert Krause sentenced Gianquitti, a former Providence police officer who retired on disability, to 40 years for the second-degree murder of James Pagano. He also received a mandatory concurrent life sentence for using a firearm while committing a crime of violence. The state had advocated for consecutive life terms, while the defense proposed a sentence of 10 years for the murder charge. Gianquitti, who was convicted in April, will be eligible for parole in 20 years.

The sentence sat well with the Pagano family, though the death of a man they said they all looked up to never would.

“The inconceivable fact is when you drill right down to the root of this senseless tragedy, it comes down to a tennis ball,” Lisa Pagano, told the court. “My brother was murdered over a tennis ball. A tennis ball….”

On May 18, 2008, a stray tennis ball some children in the Pagano family were playing baseball with on Daisy Court in Cranston hit Gianquitti’s car. When one of the children went to retrieve the ball, Gianquitti met him in his driveway and gave him an expletive-laced order to move the game elsewhere, according to trial testimony.

The children went back to the Pagano home and told the family what happened. James Pagano walked silently out the door to the Gianquitti house.

Pagano’s daughter, Adriana, said Thursday that she still blames herself for even telling her father about what Gianquitti said.

“Sometimes I wish I never went to tell my parents that Nick swore at me and my cousins because it would have changed our lives completely,” she told the court Thursday. “My dad would still be alive.”

It took moments for Pagano to reach Gianquitti’s front door. His knocks went unanswered. As he turned to leave, Pagano yelled up to his neighbor that it was “a good thing” he didn’t answer, according to testimony. Gianquitti opened the door, a .380-caliber semiautomatic in a hip holster hidden by his untucked shirt.

The men traded curses. Gianquitti gave Pagano an obscene hand gesture and spat on him. Pagano swung, catching Gianquitti on the cheek, according to trial testimony. The men propelled forward into the open doorway of the Gianquitti home. Gianquitti stumbled backward down several stairs to the basement. Pagano stumbled in afterward. Gianquitti would testify at the trial that he thought his neighbor was barreling toward him and that he feared for his life. Gianquitti pulled the gun from his hip and fired, just as Pagano turned to run from the house.

If he was afraid, said Pagano’s younger sister, Jean Verdi, Gianquitti had other options.

“Instead of not answering the door when Jim knocked on it 3 times, he chose to answer and shoot Jim dead,” she said.

“Our lives have changed forever, and every day we wonder why we are here and he is not,” Rosealba Pagano, the victim’s mother, told the court. “We experienced the crime that took our son on several levels. To lose our only son is a horrible experience. To lose him to a gunshot is incomprehensible. To witness the crime is to live your worst nightmare.”

As he listened to the Paganos speak before the sentence was imposed, Gianquitti stared straight ahead, no sign of emotion on his face. But before he heard his sentence, Gianquitti rose to address the court and show remorse for the crime.

“I can’t ask for their forgiveness, and I understand that,” Gianquitti said. “I know I made a regrettable choice that afternoon and I’m haunted by that decision each and every single day, and I’m sorry. I know the choice I made caused a great loss to the Pagano family. A loss that can not be put into words. I’m sorry. I understand that whatever I say will not change the outcome. I’m sorry for the pain I have caused. I’ve destroyed two families….”

As he spoke, he lifted his head from the handwritten notes on the folded piece of paper he’d pulled from his pocket. His gaze found the Pagano family.

tbuford@projo.com