The Lesson is Murder: Who was James Polites?

ABC News Studio’s The Lesson is Murder is a docuseries that explores the profiling of killers and criminals with the help of ex-FBI Special Agent Dr. Bryanna Fox. The docuseries recently covered the case of Ivie DeMolina, who is currently incarcerated for the murder of James Polites and Joseph Fiammetta. 

DeMolina was the product of a difficult childhood. According to her essay, she was repeatedly sexually abused by her half-brother. This pushed her towards drug use and deriving satisfaction from violence. 

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Ivie held a lot of jobs for a very short period. During her 20s, she started working as a sex worker and a dominatrix. She soon made new friends, and they became her accomplices in the following crimes. 

In August of 1994, DeMolina contacted one of her clients to meet at his New Jersey apartment. Court records showed that DeMolina had previously had sex with the client. That day, she and her accomplices entered his apartment, tied him up, and robbed him at gunpoint. 

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The very next day, she met up with James Polites. Polites and DeMolina had dated before. They had decided to meet at his house in New Jersey. However, this time the situation escalated. When Polites was discovered, he was found stabbed to death, and his apartment was completely ransacked.

Three days later, DeMolina and her group traveled to Long Island. Here too, they carried out a similar crime. A man named Joseph Fiammetta was discovered stabbed to death after he had decided to meet DeMolina for sex. 

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The police soon connected the two murders, and DeMolina stood out in both of them. Finally, in 1996, Ivie Demolina was convicted for the murder of Joseph Fiammenta. She was sentenced to 25 years to life for second-degree murder. 

She was also convicted for the murder of James Polites. For his murder, she was transferred to Bergen County in New Jersey, where she was prosecuted. She was found guilty of Polites’ murder and given 30 more years. 

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However, the 30 years to life was to run consecutively with her 25 years sentence rather than concurrently. While Demolina claims that her lawyer promised her that she would later be able to serve a sentence for Polites’ murder concurrently, the lawyer later said that he had promised no such thing.