The Long Island man charged with killing a New Jersey high school football player outside a downtown ax-throwing bar was acquitted by a Manhattan jury — even after admitting to the fatal stabbing on the witness stand.

Gianluca Bordone, 21, was found not guilty of manslaughter and assault charges Thursday after convincing jurors that he acted in self-defense when he stabbed 17-year-old Rocco Rodden in the heart outside the Live Axe nightclub in TriBeCa the night before Thanksgiving 2023.

The three-week trial included a handful of witnesses who testified about the drunken, early morning melee where Bordone, an Oyster Bay event promoter, plunged a pocket knife into Rodden’s chest as both groups of friends fought. 4

“He inflicted the fatal blow, a fatal wound in the center of his c

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