John Katehis, seen in a posting to his MySpace page, was convicted of second-degree murder. (MYSPACE.COM)

Second-Degree Murder Conviction for John Katehis

Jury finds defendant guilty of top charge in 2009 Brooklyn killing of George Weber

Published: Tuesday, November 15, 2011 7:00 PM CST

BY DUNCAN OSBORNE 

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A Brooklyn jury quickly found John Katehis guilty of second-degree murder in the 2009 killing of George Weber, a journalist and gay man.

“The way Nicolazzi was putting it, she was making it like he was a murderer,” said Spiro Katehis, John’s father, outside of Brooklyn Supreme Court following the November 15 verdict.

Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi, the assistant district attorney who prosecuted the case, delivered an effective closing argument on November 14, telling jurors that Katehis, now 19, may have planned Weber’s murder and perhaps even tortured the 47-year-old victim before killing him.

Nicolazzi declined to comment in the wake of the verdict’s announcement.

Jurors began deliberating around noon on the 14th and announced they had a verdict by 3 p.m. on November 15. During their deliberations, they reviewed parts of the judge’s instructions to them and a few pieces of evidence. The speed of their verdict suggests they easily adopted the prosecution’s theory.

Katehis, who was 16 when he stabbed Weber 50 times, placed an ad on Craigslist in March of 2009 offering oral sex for money. The two men corresponded via email over several days, with Weber seeking to be tied up and smothered, an act that Katehis agreed to. The two met in Weber’s Carroll Gardens apartment after Katehis traveled there from his parents’ home in Queens.

Nicolazzi had a great deal of physical evidence and Katehis’ statements to police to use. Both the defense and the prosecution told jurors that those statements were a mix of truth and lies. The two sides could only make inferences as to much of what actually transpired in Weber’s apartment.

Nicolazzi told jurors that the evidence suggested that Weber’s hands were bound when Katehis began his attack. She noted that Weber had knife wounds on both hands, which suggested he was defending himself, while Katehis had wounds only on his right hand, indicating he was injured when the knife slipped as he was stabbing Weber.

In his defense, Katehis argued that Weber gave him cocaine and alcohol. The drugs made him feel “jumpy,” he said in statements to police. Tests on blood drawn from Katehis within hours of the attack found no controlled substances or measurable amounts of alcohol, nor was any cocaine found in Weber’s apartment.

After he bound Weber’s feet with duct tape, Katehis said, Weber displayed a knife and he panicked. The two struggled over the knife, and Katehis said he accidentally stabbed Weber once in the throat. Katehis had a knife collection and was known to regularly carry knives.

Katehis’ attorney, Jay Cohen, called Weber a “pedophile” repeatedly during the trial. New York’s age of consent is 17. Cohen argued that his client may have been defending himself from Weber or that he acted in a panic after Weber asked him to do something that made him “uncomfortable.”

Katehis’ first trial ended in a hung jury, with 11 jurors voting to convict him and one holding out for acquittal. Jurors in the first trial had a single second-degree murder count to weigh. In the second trial, jurors considered murder and first-degree manslaughter.

“I really made a pitch for them to convict him of manslaughter,” Cohen said.

Second-degree murder carries a maximum sentence of 25-years-to-life. Katehis will be sentenced on December 7.