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Actor Faces Prison Time For Using Pellet Gun In Movie Scene

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Carlo Bellario, a comedian and actor from New Jersey, is facing up to five years in prison after being arrested with a pellet gun which he was using to film a scene for a low budget movie in Woodbridge last year.

Bellario, in an interview with Rich Zeoli on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, said he would rather face a jury than take the plea deal offered by prosecutors.

"They offered me three years and I basically told them, let's go to trial. This is ridiculous...I didn't fire any projectiles. I didn't go off the movie set with the weapon. I pretended. You know how you're pretending to play cowboys and Indians? You go bang, bang. That's pretty much what I did."

He admitted to having run into problems with the law before, but thinks it is ludicrous to be charged with these crimes while participating in a movie shoot.

"I have six prior convictions, a few of them are felonies on my record, so, technically, I'm not even supposed to look at a gun. I get it and I don't violate that. This seems to be the big thing with them. Another thing that they're trying to say is that I brought the gun with me. Yeah, I brought the gun with me. I brought cannolis with me. It's so ridiculous, what they're trying to do."

Bellario asserts that he is the only one from the set that day being charged with any crime at all.

"The biggest slight here to me, nobody from the production company has been held culpable or brought into this. I was the only one carted away that day and I'm still scratching my head as to why."

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