U.S. Man, Aide Found Guilty in Mexican Facial-Peel Death

MEXICO CITY â€”  The grandson of a prominent Hollywood facial-peel entrepreneur was found guilty Thursday of first-degree murder in the Mexican capital and sentenced to nearly 24 years in prison, officials said.

Joseph Pantuso, 59, was convicted in the December 1997 death of an elderly man whom he was treating with the same cosmetic process that his grandmother made famous in the 1950s, when she treated stars such as Gloria Swanson.

Court clerk Graciela Perez said that Judge Maria de Jesus Medel Diaz issued the verdict and prison sentence--23 years and nine months--late Thursday afternoon and that Pantuso had been informed of the result. Pantuso’s assistant, Fernando Martinez, was also convicted and received the same sentence.

Perez said that Medel Diaz’s full judgment will be given to the defendants’ attorney and to the prosecutor today and that under Mexican law, only the parties are authorized to disclose the contents of the decision.

The defendants’ lawyer, Jorge Vasquez, said he understood that the verdict essentially accepted the prosecution’s argument that Pantuso and Martinez had forced 76-year-old Las Vegas producer George Arnold to swallow a toxic substance and then strangled him.

“This is an incoherent sentence,� Vasquez said. “What is happening here . . . shows the problems that exist in the Mexican judicial system.�

Pantuso had argued during the trial that Arnold was a family friend who had been treated by him and his grandmother, Cora Galenti, for 30 years and that he had no reason to do Arnold any harm. Pantuso maintained that Arnold apparently suffered a heart attack or sudden illness during the treatment and that his efforts to revive him failed.

Pantuso has been jailed without bail for 14 months in the maximum-security section of Mexico City’s huge Reclusorio Oriente prison and was not reachable for comment.

Vasquez said he will appeal the verdict. He will first take the case to an appellate court, and if that fails, he will seek an amparo, a ruling somewhat similar to a U.S. writ of habeas corpus that would result in Pantuso’s freedom on grounds that the proceedings violated his constitutional rights.

Pantuso, who was born in New York City, grew up in Los Angeles and was devoted to his grandmother. When she became embroiled in lawsuits that she blamed on jealous competitors--most of which she won--she moved her business out of California, first to Las Vegas and then, in 1963, to Mexico City.

She ran the business here for decades and died in 1993. Pantuso joined her in 1981 and gradually took over the clinic.