Two portraits of the teenager accused of fatally stabbing a radio newsman he met on Craigslist came into sharper focus during closing arguments at his trial Monday.
Prosecutor Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi portrayed John Katehis as a “mature” and “cold, calculating, savvy killer,” who at 16 placed a Craigslist advertisement offering sex for money. He “viciously” stabbed one respondent to his ad, George Weber, 50 times in the 47-year-old’s Brooklyn apartment in March 2009, she said.
Defense lawyer Jeffrey Schwartz portrayed his client as a money-desperate teenager who was lured to the apartment of a drunken predator of teen boys with a fetish for being smothered. Once there, Schwartz told jurors, Weber gave the teen alcohol and a mysterious powdery substance before pressuring “him to do things that made him uncomfortable” in exchange for $60.
Weber was stabbed, Schwartz told the jury, as Katehis defended himself during a struggle over a knife Weber pulled out in the middle of the sexual encounter.
Jurors will decide which characterization they believe when they begin deliberations Tuesday. Katehis faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted.
Weber had been working as a freelancer for ABC News Radio. He also had worked at WABC in New York, and at stations in California, Colorado and Pennsylvania.
Police discovered his body on his bedroom floor after his employer called them saying he hadn’t been to work. Weber’s pants and underwear were at his ankles, which were bound with duct tape. He had been stabbed about 50 times, and his blood-alcohol level was 1.2, autopsy and toxicology reports showed. The powder found in his apartment tested negative for narcotic drugs, said Nicolazzi, who doubted Weber gave Katehis the power to snort.
“The defendant did intentionally kill George Weber,” the prosecutor told jurors. “He wasn’t justified, and he wasn’t intoxicated.”
In a video recorded statement taken hours after police arrested him, Katehis, now 18, said Weber told him to bind his ankles.
Sensing that jurors might take issue with the age difference between Weber and his accused murderer, Nicolazzi told them they had an obligation “to leave your emotions on the courthouse steps” and to consider the “evidence coupled with the law.”
During the trial, which started Oct. 18, Nicolazzi presented the Craigslist ad she said Katehis posted as well as e-mail exchanges between him and Weber. The exchanges, Nicolazzi told jurors, showed Katehis’ comfort with having sex with older men for money.
She also called police detectives, a city medical examiner, Weber’s brother-in-law, and officials from Yahoo! and Craigslist as witnesses. She showed pictures Katehis had posted online of himself holding knives to demonstrate what she said was an “interest” in them.
Although investigators never recovered the knife used in the killing, the medical examiner testified that Weber’s wounds “could be consistent” with at least one of the knives shown in the pictures.
The cuts Katehis suffered on his right hand, which required stitches, were the result of his “stabbing frenzy,” the prosecutor said.
Nicolazzi speculated on Katehis’ motive – he became “sickened” by what he had come to Weber’s apartment to do; he was “angered” by something Weber asked him to do; he “loathed” his own sexuality” – but acknowledged it may never be clear.
Schwartz told jurors the struggle over the knife was “life or death.” He also told them Katehis was “entitled to the benefit of every reasonable doubt.”
In his closing argument, Schwartz underscored Weber and Katehis’ age difference, specifically that Katehis was under 17, New York’s age to consent to sex.
“He was a drunk adult trying to engage in this behavior with an underage kid,” he told jurors.