Feb 23, 2007 8:03 am US/Pacific
Actor Facing Murder Rap: I'm No Monster
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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Lillo Brancato Jr., a former actor in movies like "A Bronx Tale" and on the hit HBO series "The Sopranos," agreed to a jailhouse interview with WCBS-TV. (File)
AP
Lillo Brancato Jr., whose resume includes roles in "Sopranos" and "A Bronx Tale," has fallen from stardom to just about as low as a man can go.
He said his devil was cocaine. It led him to a cell on Rikers Island, awaiting trial for the murder of a police officer.
"There's a saying in Italian, I'll say it in English: 'When the devil caresses you he wants your soul,'" Brancato said.
"I'm not the monster that they portray me as in newspapers, a cold-blooded killer and all of that. I'm not that person at all."
Brancato agreed to an exclusive interview with WCBS-TV with one restriction imposed by his lawyer: We couldn't ask about the night he was with a friend, who allegedly shot and killed off-duty NYPD Officer Daniel Enchautegui.
"I know in my heart I was in no way responsible for the death of that police officer," Brancato said.
Brancato is a self-confessed drug addict who got his first movie role at age 16 and starred in "A Bronx Tale," opposite Hollywood heavyweights Robert De Niro and Chazz Palminteri.
"The first time I ever got high smoking pot, really it was the first drug I ever did, it was on film," said Brancato.
Brancato remembers being so high during a scene in "A Bronx Tale" that he could hardly speak.
A year later he was using cocaine and battled addiction for the next 12 years.
"There was times I was sober, one and a half or two months, worked so hard to get to that point and just out of nowhere something comes over you," Brancato said.
Brancato said drugs would have killed him had he not landed in jail, and he's thought a lot about the night the cop was killed.
"There is a god and he knows what was in my mind and in my heart that night," Brancato said.
There are many out there who believe Brancato has put out some of his best acting during this entire ordeal, but he said that's hardly the case.
"I've been through so much this is definitely not an act," Brancato said. "This is my life and it's not in the best place right now."
He waits, now clean and sober, to clear his name.
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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