The 26 year old girlfriend of a 58 year old Philadelphia defense attorney, prominent for his association with organized crime, was found dead, naked, and face down in his bathtub on Saturday, May 25, 2013. You can read details of the story here:
Defense attorney A. Charles Peruto was not home at the time the body was found, but he did find time to send a text message to a local newspaper about the death of his girlfriend.
A. Charles Peruto text message: “Julia was a beautiful, caring free spirit hippy, who I was blessed to have known. Words can’t express how sad I am to finally have met someone who I believed truly loved me.”
“who I believed truly loved me” – Mr. Peruto is a defense attorney who makes his living by carefully choosing his words, especially those utilized in a written format, such as a text message. When speaking, we all choose our words in microseconds, but when writing, we are able to spend a great deal more time and care picking the right words. With these words, Mr. Peruto is telling us he “believed” his girlfriend “truly loved” him.
If he “believed”, he no longer believes. When did he stop believing? Before or after her death? This single word is extremely significant.
The use of the word “truly” to modify “loved” indicates the love is a source of anxiety for the attorney. Even if she “loved” him, he feels she did not “truly” love him. For the attorney, there are degrees of love and whatever she felt for him was not the degree he “believed”. What caused this change in his belief?
“Words can’t express how sad I am” – This sounds fine coming from someone relating their feelings about their recently deceased girlfriend. However, the remainder of the sentence makes it clear the attorney is not sad about the death of his girlfriend, he is sad “to finally have met someone who I believed truly loved me”. In other words, he is sad he met someone he thought loved him, then learned she didn’t. His girlfriend is dead, but his grief is not about her death, but about her feelings for him. Did her death cause his belief about her feelings for him to change or did this sadness affect him prior to her death? When did he discover she did not “truly” love him?
“who I was blessed to have known” – The attorney “was blessed” to have known his girlfriend. He is not currently “blessed” to have known her. This is significant. For most of us, we would continue to feel “blessed” to have known our loved one prior to their death and described it in words as “I am blessed”, but for the attorney, this feeling ceased at some point because he describes it in the past. Did it cease at the time of her death? Or did it cease before?
What have we learned?
We have learned this defense attorney made an extremely strange comment in text form for publication in a newspaper which makes it clear he no longer believes his girlfriend, found dead under unusual circumstances which suggest homicide, loved him and he is no longer blessed to have known her.
Bull Stopper Stops Bull 
Yes, I know 2 people that have used his firm, 1 used him specifically. He is a very respected defense attorney by prosecutors as well. He knows his stuff. Also, contrary to the stuff being said about him representing mafioso, rape offenders, drunk drivers, etc, I’ve personally been told that he has a great personality and very big heart when it comes to kids. I’ve also been told that just bc he is a bachelor that it doesn’t mean he’s a womanizer, that he’s not a cheat and that he definitely knows how to treat a gal good. My cousin Sam lives in Philly. I asked her to join but she said forums aren’t her cuppa tea. We’ll see… I still think this was a tragic self inflicted accident and I believe they really were seeing each other. It would have been uncovered in the media by now if they weren’t, if only to make him look bad bc obviously he doesn’t score any brownie points by representing serious criminals.