Mom’s lawyer: Video points to different killer of boy in ’91

A lawyer for a Florida woman charged with killing her 5-year-old son in New Jersey more than 20 years ago sought Tuesday to introduce testimony at her trial that could point to a different assailant.

Gerald Krovatin told state Superior Court Judge Dennis Nieves he has a video interview with a man who claims an acquaintance told him about killing a young boy under circumstances that are strikingly similar to Timothy Wiltsey's death in 1991.

Prosecutors immediately accused Krovatin of trying to publicize the video to taint the jury pool.

Krovatin's client, Michelle Lodzinski, is charged with killing Timothy in May 1991. Timothy's remains were found 11 months later in a marshy area of Edison.

Lodzinski's trial is scheduled for January.

Lodzinski attended the hearing but didn't speak. The former Port St. Lucie, Florida, resident was arrested last year after investigators realized some of the items found with Timothy's remains --including a blanket -- hadn't been shown to people who could identify them. She is being held in New Jersey on $2 million bail.

Lodzinski told authorities at the time that Timothy vanished while they were at a carnival in Sayreville. She subsequently changed her story, saying he was kidnapped at knifepoint by two men and a woman and driven away.

Prosecutors also are seeking to have other statements made by Lodzinski admitted at trial. A few years after Timothy's body was discovered, Lodzinski alleged two men claiming to be FBI agents had abducted her at gunpoint outside her apartment building, forced her into a car and drove to Detroit, where they let her out.

She pleaded guilty in 1995 to making false statements to the FBI and fraudulently using the agency's seal. She was sentenced to probation.

Lodzinski's statements to the FBI should be admitted because they contain similar details to the statements she made about her son's disappearance -- both involved abduction by two men, a car and a knife -- prosecutors argued Tuesday.

"This is classic consciousness of guilt evidence," Joie Piderit, assistant Middlesex County prosecutor, told the judge. "She can't leave it behind; it keeps coming up. This is her guilty conscience crying out, revealing itself."

Krovatin called the FBI statements "completely irrelevant" to the murder case and an attempt by the prosecution to prejudice the jury. He argued that Lodzinski made up a story because she didn't want to be pulled into an investigation of her then-boyfriend.

Nieves could rule on the evidence admissibility issues this week.

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