A DA's investigator then took the camera to the county crime lab and made sure all the videos were gone, a lab report says.
Mark Angiolillo, who was hired by the DA's office to play piano at the private party on Dec. 15, 2011, said he started filming Fitzpatrick's speech because he thought it was funny.
Three or four members of the DA's office approached Angiolillo and one of them told him to hand over his video camera, he said.
Angiolillo said then-Assistant District Attorney Clifton Carden told him, "If you don't give it up, we could have you thrown out the window."
"I said, 'Are you serious?'" Angiolillo said.
"Yeah -- you got to give it up. It's got to be confiscated," Angiolillo says Carden told him.
The seizure of Angiolillo's camera prompted an investigation by Syracuse police. A deputy police chief tried unsuccessfully for two years to persuade federal and state prosecutors to file criminal charges against employees of the DA's office.
Fitzpatrick offered no explanation for why his staff seized the camera. He defended the deletions by saying they were inappropriate videos of Angiolillo and others that were "criminal offenses."
The DA wouldn't explain why his staff would bring the evidence of a crime to the lab and delete the evidence.
Angiolillo wasn't charged with any crimes