Fake DJ faces the music
and is convicted

By Tom Waring
Times Staff Writer

A South Philadelphia man who posed as a radio disc jockey to lure a Northeast girl to his home will be sentenced on July 25 after being convicted of multiple counts.
William Passarello, 25, was found guilty on Friday of two counts each of having contact with a minor and corrupting the morals of a minor and one count each of promoting prostitution, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment, indecent assault, falsely impersonating another person, terroristic threats and harassment by communication.
However, Common Pleas Court Judge Anthony J. DeFino acquitted Passarello of the most serious charge, kidnapping. The judge revoked the suspect’s $800,000 bail.
July 25 will be a busy day in DeFino’s courtroom. Besides the sentencing, Passarello is expected to plead guilty in a case where he allegedly used a stolen credit card to rent limousines. He will also go on trial for allegedly raping a New Jersey woman he met through an online dating service.
Passarello also faces charges of threatening to shoot police officers searching his house. And he’ll be tried for allegedly threatening people while posing as an employee of 96.5 FM and Sunny 104.5.
The incident for which he was convicted last week took place on Jan. 20, 2004. He was arrested by police four days later while sleeping in his car, which was parked on a Kensington street.
The trial finally began on June 16. Assistant District Attorney Mike Stackow called three witnesses that day and two police officers the next day. Public defender Wendy Goldstein did not call any witnesses. DeFino deliberated for about 15 minutes before delivering his verdict.
Lisa Acchione, director of marketing for Clear Channel Philadelphia, testified that the call-in lines were not flashing at WIOQ (102.1 FM) on the morning of Jan. 20, 2004.
Acchione, whose employer owns the radio station, said the engineering department was in contact all day with Verizon’s service department. That night, it was finally determined that someone had called the phone company to report phone troubles and ask that all calls be forwarded to another number.
That person was Passarello. All the calls were forwarded to his home on the 2000 block of Kimball St.
Acchione recognized Passarello’s voice that evening as she listened to his off-air banter with Q102 disc jockeys Rocco and Kevin "The Nudge." She testified that he had appeared on the air as a caller in the past.
Two Mayfair teenagers, ages 17 and 16, were listening to Q102 that afternoon when the station announced a call-in contest for $1,000 and two front-row tickets to a Britney Spears concert.
One of the girls called, and a man answered.
"Am I caller 102?" the 17-year-old asked.
The man told her she had won the tickets and the money. Meanwhile, the girls could hear the man telling other callers that they had lost.
After the older girl said she would be unable to go to the station to pick up the tickets, Passarello agreed to pick her up in the "Q" vehicle.
The phony DJ picked her up outside a Sheffield Avenue pizza parlor, arriving in a car with a Q102 emblem.
"He said, ‘Are you ready to go get your tickets?’ and I hopped in the car," she said.
That would be the beginning of a three-hour ordeal.
The two drove down Aramingo Avenue, and Passarello gave the girl several $100 bills, instructing her to give them out to other motorists who answered "Q102" when she asked them to name their favorite radio station.
As they drove, he told her he had to stop at home because his parents were delivering his laundry. After arriving, he said he had to talk to his father for 15 minutes, adding that she was welcome to come into the house to wait.
"It’s the middle of January. It’s freezing. I’m not waiting out in the cold," she said.
Inside, the teen heard Q102 listeners call in to make requests. Passarello initially told her that his co-workers were messing with him, but then she heard him tell a 13-year-old girl that he wanted to "stick it up your a—."
Then, he offered a woman calling from a Camden hair salon $500 if she agreed to have sex with him or if she would convince his "intern" to have sex with him.
"I got a little freaked out," the teen said.
Passarello insisted on ordering food for the two of them even though the girl didn’t want any. He began acting strangely, saying to himself, "Mozzarella sticks. Everybody likes mozzarella sticks. I’ll get you mozzarella sticks."
The teen called her friend at work. The friend asked if she was having fun and if the "DJ" was cute. She answered no to both questions.
During the phone conversation, the girl — who began crying after DeFino questioned her on details of the incident — said Passarello rubbed his crotch against her leg.
"Don’t touch me," she said.
Passarello overheard the victim’s friend ask if she should call police, and the girl ran for the front door.
"Where the f—- do you think you’re going? Passarello asked her.
At that point, Passarello agreed to take the teenager back to the Northeast.
Stackow, the prosecutor, played tapes of phone conversations Passarello had with Q102 employees while driving the girl home. The defendant laughed as the tapes were played.
Passarello, then at Torresdale Avenue and Benner Street, told the Q102 staffers — who apparently believed it might have been a prank by rival 96.5 — that he would give them back their phone lines if a motorist could find him in a Honda Civic. That, though, was the make and model of the car in front of him.
The suspect also touched the girl at the top of her thigh.
"Let me the f—- out of this car," she said.
Passarello dropped her off at a bar at Torresdale and Bleigh avenues.
On cross-examination, the victim denied telling Passarello she was 18 and became angry when Goldstein suggested she could have told her mom in a phone conversation that she was in trouble.
"I’m sitting three feet away from a man I’m terrified of and you want me to give out his address?" she asked.
The witness also said she left her cell phone downstairs when she went to the bathroom, missing an opportunity to call for help.
"Lo and behold, you don’t have your phone," Goldstein said.
The teen also said she "must have forgot" to mention in her statement to a detective in the police department’s special victims unit that the suspect ground his crotch against her leg.
"That would be the biggie, wouldn’t it?" Goldstein asked. ••
Reporter Tom Waring can be reached at 215-354-3034 or twaring@phillynews.com