Nearly three years after Mackenzie Shirilla was found guilty in connection to a car crash that killed her boyfriend, Dominic Russo, and friend Davion Flanagan, Chris Cuomo argued that her defense team botched her trial.
While appearing on the “Drop Dead Serious with Ashleigh Banfield” podcast, Cuomo, 55, argued that Shirilla’s legal team made mistakes that ultimately hurt her defense.
“There were real mistakes made by their lawyers that absolutely made this worse for their child,” he said, stating that her attorneys did not effectively frame the case around data, forensics and context.
Cuomo believes that the defense failed to provide enough context when arguing that Shirilla, 21, and Russo’s relationship was volatile. “I believe the lawyer didn’t argue the context of those texts well,” he said, referencing text messages in which the couple discussed mental health struggles prior to the crash. “There were other texts he had access to, or should have had, that showed these were teenagers in a volatile relationship.”
He also said that the defense didn’t present evidence that proved there was mental instability on both sides of the relationship.
“There was stuff that Dom did also that would feed this idea of instability, that it wasn’t just her craziness and violent tendencies,” Cuomo said. “I think he didn’t argue it well.”
Another criticism that Cuomo had of the case was the defense’s decision to waive a jury trial and instead have a bench trial before a judge. “That was a bad decision,” he said.
Cuomo also reflected on the prosecution’s theory that Shirilla crashed the car in a murder-suicide attempt.
“I’m not questioning who did this, or who is criminally responsible for it,” Cuomo said, adding that he believed Shirilla was responsible for the crash.
He went on to insist that there was insufficient evidence that Shirilla intended to commit suicide in the crash, which was one of the prosection’s main arguments during the case.
“If she’s not suicidal and wasn’t suicidal, then how did she intend to kill herself and them?” he said. “It’s one of those cases where it’s the right outcome, wrong rationale.”
While Cuomo said that he disagreed with the prosecution’s theory that the crash was a murder-suicide attempt, he insisted that he believes Shirilla is guilty.
“She’s not innocent. She’s guilty,” he said.
Cuomo went on to state that he believes her crime is more aligned with manslaughter than murder because he believes the prosecutors did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Shirilla intended to die.
“I don’t believe there’s a case to be made beyond a reasonable doubt that she is suicidal,” he said. “You can’t try to kill, or have the intent to kill, yourself and others — which is what this charge is — when I don’t believe she wanted to die.”
Following the fatal car crash in 2022, Shirilla was found guilty of 12 felony charges, including four counts of murder. She is now serving two consecutive terms of 15 years to life in prison. She has maintained her innocence and insisted she didn’t intend to crash the car in Netflix’s May documentary The Crash.
Shirilla’s trial attorney did not immediately respond to Us’ request for comment regarding Cuomo’s comments.
