Andrea Zamperoni, the head chef at the well-known Cipriani Dolci located in Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal, left his workplace at 10 p.m. on August 17, 2019. His absence from work the next day raised concerns among his colleagues.

“Andrea was not someone who drank a lot, rarely went out, and didn’t have a romantic partner or former spouse. He was very dedicated to his job,” explained Fernando Dallorso, who served as a general manager for Cipriani at that time.

“His disappearance was due to circumstances beyond his control,” Dallorso mentioned during “The World Class Chef” episode of New York Homicide, airing Saturdays at 9/8c p.m. on Oxygen.

New York City Police Department detectives soon found themselves in the middle of a stomach-turning case involving drugs, sex and homicide.

Police search for clues in Queens

After checking with hospitals about admissions, investigators began at Zamperoni’s apartment in Queens. “We didn’t see a sign of a struggle,” said Duane Atkinson of the NYPD’s 110th Precinct Detective Squad. 

The missing chef’s passport was still at the residence, indicating he hadn’t left the country. One of the chef’s roommates told detectives that he’d seen Zamperoni at 2 a.m. on Sunday, August 18, outside the apartment talking to someone in a car. 

Police checked Zamperoni’s financial accounts and found that his credit card was used at a CVS, a grocery store, and a Queens casino. Surveillance video at the locations showed a man using the card. 

“This Asian male in a red shirt became a person of interest,” Atkinson said. “We needed to find out who he is.”

Detectives get tip about a dead body in a motel

As fellow investigators looked into the credit card lead, Det. Andre Perez of the 110th Precinct canvassed Elmhurst, Queens, the neighborhood where the missing chef lived. “We started putting out missing flyers,” he said. Police also reached out to the media.

On August 21, an officer told investigators that a confidential informant tipped him off about a dead body at the Kamway Lodge, which was also located in Elmhurst.

“As soon as we walked in, you could smell like there was possibly a dead person inside of the motel,” Perez said of one particular room at the lodge where the rank odor came from. A woman answered the door to that room when police announced themselves. 

Inside, detectives found a body, identified as Zamperoni’s, in a tipped over garbage can covered with sheets. “He’d been dead for approximately two days,” Perez said. Investigators also found Zamperoni’s credit card, drug paraphernalia, and numerous air fresheners in the room. 

Angelina Barini emerges as a suspect

Perez recognized the woman at the Kamway Lodge room as Angelina Barini, a woman from Canada with a long rap sheet that included sex work. For one of her prior arrests, a victim had claimed he was drugged, and that Barini took his watch.

Perez had encountered Barini on July 11, 2019, during an investigation into the suspected drug overdose death of 28-year-old Jean-Alessander Silvero at another Queens motel. 

The investigation had revealed messages between Silvero and Barini. “They’re talking about… meeting up together at the motel. He tells her that he wants narcotics, and she says that she’d be able to provide that for him,” Perez said. 

Weeks after his death. Silvero’s autopsy and toxicology results showed that he died of intoxication by fentanyl, a powerful drug sometimes laced in other narcotics. Police didn’t have enough evidence to arrest Barini in the case.

But over the summer of 2019, prior to Zamperoni’s death, the NYPD’s Queens overdose squad investigated two more incidents in which men were robbed and found dead with traces of fentanyl in their system. Barini’s number appeared on all four victims’ cell phone histories, according to New York Homicide.

Barini claimed that she’d met Zamperoni on the street and that they decided to hang out. Then Barini said her pimp, Ken, was there and that he gave Zamperoni drugs and a drink to boost his sexual performance. 

Barini claimed that Zamperoni fell asleep and never woke up, and that Ken went through the chef’s pockets. “She continued meeting her johns with Andrea Zamperoni in the room unresponsive and just deceased,” said Atkinson. “She said that Ken made her do it.”

Leslie Lescano becomes a suspect

Through a picture, Barini identified the man in the red shirt using Zamperoni’s credit card as her pimp, Ken. His real name was Leslie Lescano.

Investigators rushed to find Lescano and combed through surveillance footage at the Kamway Lodge. The surveillance video showed Zamperoni enter a room with Barini and never leave it.

Zamperoni’s toxicology report showed that he had alcohol, cocaine and GBL, a depressant regarded as a date-rape drug, in his system. It was a deadly cocktail, according to Lt. Peter Calderon of the 110th Precinct Detective Squad.

“They wound up overdosing Andrea Zamperoni,” Calderon said. “The colloquial term would be that he was dosed.” Investigators sought to find out who gave Zamperoni the killer cocktail. 

Police arrested Lescano for stealing Zamperoni’s credit cards. When questioned about Zamperoni’s death, he put the blame on Barini.

Text messages between Barini and Lescano revealed that he was her ex-boyfriend, though she referred to him as her pimp. Through phone histories, detectives determined who was giving out the “bad drugs,” said Perez. 

Investigators learned that in August, Barini met Zamperoni online. Then, two days before they met up, she contacted Lescano. “We discovered that Barini is the doser,” Calderon said. 

“She basically tells him, ‘I have an opportunity for you.’ She doesn’t really specify what it is, but it involves money. It involves drugs,” Rosenberg said. 

Barini met Zamperoni at a bar, and then lured him to the Kamway Lodge, where Lescano was hiding in a room. “She somehow gets Zamperoni to drink or take some deadly mixture, and he immediately passes out,” Rosenberg said.

Investigators believed the motive behind the crime was theft. But Barini and Lescano seemed indifferent about what happened to the men that were drugged and robbed.

“She’s bringing johns back to the room. She’s having parties,” Rosenberg said. “She’s been doing drugs for the whole three days, and the smell is just getting stronger and stronger, because he’s [Zamperoni] decomposing.”

Angelina Barini and Leslie Lescano arrested

Police charged Barini with conspiring to distribute the date-rape drug. Next, they focused on tying her to Silvero’s death. She admitted she gave him fentanyl.

After Barini confessed to dosing and killing Silvero, police turned their case over to the U.S. Department of Justice. Prosecutors there further investigated and connected Barini to the overdose deaths of the two other Queens men who were robbed. 

In August of 2021, Barini pleaded guilty to four counts, including conspiring to distribute the date-rape drug to Zamperoni. She was sentenced to 30 years for her role in the deaths.

“We think that she killed a lot more people,” said Det. Jean Joseph of the NYPD’s Queens North Narcotics. “She’d been doing this for years.”

Lescano was found guilty of conspiring to distribute the date-rape drug and sentenced to 32 months in prison.

To learn more about the case, watch “The World Class Chef” episode of New York Homicide. The show airs new episodes on Saturdays at 9/8c p.m. on Oxygen.