Indeed, it has also been held that such evidence in like contexts is highly probative of the defendant's motive and [i]s either directly related to or inextricably interwoven (People v. Ely, [68 N.Y.2d 520] at 529 [510 N.Y.S.2d 532, 503 N.E.2d 88]) with the issue of his identity as the killer (People v. Linton, 166 A.D.2d 670, 671, 561 N.Y.S.2d 259, lv. Rather, it should be, and is, a process whereby trial attorneys announce an unambiguous objection, in praesenti, based on an articulated or otherwise known rationale involving logic, legal principles, and/or common sense, a protest which gives an adversary notice sufficient to frame a response, and affords the court an opportunity to issue a ruling. Dalsass' approximately eight telephone answering machine messages. Yet, he omitted to tell the detective that he was a pilot and that on the previous afternoon he rented a plane from a New Jersey airport between 4:30 P.M. and 6:30 P.M. for a two-hour flight. within 10 minutes, pack her dismembered torso and limbs into a flight/duffel bag and carry them through an unmonitored rear exit of his apartment building for a distance of two blocks to his garaged car. Second, he admitted that their marriage was unhappy and virtually over, and that his own anger had reached a level tempting him toward violence against her because he was so frustrated by the strife between them. WebNEW YORK Dr. Robert Bierenbaum maintained his innocence in 2000 as he was tried and convicted of killing his first wife 15 years before. Any friends, relatives, anything that could assist me would certainly be very beneficial in locating her as quickly as possible. It was the first time he had admitted to the crime since his wife, Gail Katz, disappeared in 1985. The detective specifically made it clear to defendant the importance of omitting nothing in describing and detailing for him the last three days his wife and he spent together: I opened up with anything that might be instrumental in locating Gail. All of Bierenbaums appeals over the years were unsuccessful. A jury convicted Robert Bierenbaum of second-degree murder based on circumstantial evidence that on July 7, 1985 he intentionally killed his wife, Gail Katz Bierenbaum, in their Manhattan apartment; transported her body to a New Jersey airport the same day; loaded it onto a small private plane; and piloted it over the Atlantic Ocean where he discarded her remains. He was the individual that las[t] saw her in the apartment. Judged by that standard, we find and hold that the circumstantial evidence adduced at this trial decisively extinguishes any doubt that defendant Robert Bierenbaum, and no one else, intentionally killed his wife Gail Katz Bierenbaum, brought her body to Caldwell Airport in Fairfield, New Jersey, loaded it onto a small plane, flew it over the Atlantic Ocean, and, there, dumped her remains. She was seeking his advice. denied 362 U.S. 912, 80 S.Ct. Often, evidence of prior assaults and threats manifests general aggressiveness, i.e., a general propensity to act aggressively against other people. Mar 15, 1999. ). [S]peaking in very hushed tones and very rapidly and, sounding extremely upset, she told him that she and defendant had a fight the night or day before. 255; Workman v. Boylan Buick, Inc., 36 A.D.2d 978, 979, 321 N.Y.S.2d 983; In re Von Bulow, 828 F.2d 94, 100-101). Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Leslie Crocker Snyder, J.) of Cal., 17 Cal.3d 425, 131 Cal.Rptr. No murder weapon was ever found in either case, neither defendant confessed, neither murder was witnessed, and neither victim's body-or any remains-was ever found. In 1984, she was so unhappy that she consulted a divorce lawyer. Alayne Katz told ABC News she immediately knew something was very wrong. Bierenbaum confessed to killing his wife during a parole hearing in December 2020, saying they were fighting and he wanted her to stop yelling, according to the New York Daily News. Shes not with me, and shes not with my parents, and at that moment I know that my sisters dead, Katz said. 1. These facts establish beyond any question that this marriage existed in a volatile, highly emotional, turbulent and dysfunctional environment. The proof is most telling that on the very day the victim disappeared, she intended to confront defendant with her decision to leave him. The remains were buried, the article said. After the verdict,Snyder ordered him jailed to await sentencing. The Court of Appeals has made that clear. He admitted that during the July 7 argument he failed to heed his psychiatrist's advice to try to defuse the situation and that this argument on the day she disappeared became explosive. He told others that he and the victim argued just before she left for Central Park to cool off; another that a private investigator he had hired found evidence she was living in California probably with financial help from her family; others that she had a drug problem, that she may have disappeared with drug dealers and that she probably was murdered by her druggie friends; others that she may have run off to live with someone in the Caribbean; and others that his missing wife was seen after July 7, 1985 in some type of fugue state in the Central Park area and that it was unlikely she would return. All rights reserved. 224, 177 N.W. The record also reveals that, although in July defendant told Det. Katz, 29, of New York, was murdered in July 1985 by her husband, Dr. Robert Bierenbaum. He said the day ended with a Saturday evening, candlelight dinner in their apartment, but he again declined to discuss whether this interlude, described by him as romantic, helped resolve the argument. Gail Katz is pictured in a family photo. ABC News reports that Robert Bierenbaum, who is serving 20 years-to-life in prison for murdering his wife Gail Katz, confessed to the crime during a Dec. 2020 parole However, on July 10, he called Det. The investigators were not permitted to check for blood or hair samples or to search for anything that we could document that a crime took place.. Robert Bierenbaum admitted he threw his wifes body out of an airplane and into the ocean nearly three decades ago during a parole hearing in December 2020. Confidential information privileged. Surely, killing her would not only end their miserable and loveless marriage, and end it without the expenses and financial burdens of divorce, but it would also stop her from carrying out her threats to expose his violence and his alleged fraud. However, in a strange turn of events, Robert decided to confess during a 2020 parole hearing and claimed that he had strangled Gail to death before flying out with her body and dumping it into the Atlantic Ocean. That logic, which correctly served to preclude the doctors from testifying to the information they conveyed to and received from the family, does not apply to the existence and nature of the psychiatrist's letter whose separate purpose was only to warn a third party, this victim. Katz, 29, of New York, was murdered in July 1985 by her husband, Dr. Robert Bierenbaum. Psychiatrist's Warning Letter and Other Hearsay. He again omitted on July 14 to tell Dalsass-and O'Malley as well the day before-that he was a licensed pilot, rented a plane in New Jersey, and flew it for two hours from 4:30 P.M. to 6:30 P.M. on July 7. Defendant counters this reasoning, contending that the 1983 choking incident and all the other evidence and references to threats and marital strife should have been precluded because they bespeak propensity and because the People improperly used the choking incident to suggest that defendant had a propensity for violence. Perhaps defendant's most damning omission was his repeated, false claim to the police and to others that he remained in the apartment all afternoon on July 7 and then went directly to his nephew's birthday party in New Jersey. Defendant variously suggested or stated that his wife was wandering around Central Park in a fugue state, that she had a drug problem and ran off with drug dealers, that she possibly committed suicide, that she was on a shopping spree at Bloomingdale's, that she left to hang out with druggie friends, that she might have been killed by drug dealers, and that she had left for the Carribean to be with a boyfriend. In 1989, while Bierenbaum relocated from Manhattan to Las Vegas, Nevada, to set up a new medical practice, a partial female body washed ashore in Staten Island, New York, near the area where authorities believed Bierenbaum dumped his wifes remains, according to The Charley Project. Defendant later retracted that claim. Furthermore, he said to at least two people, not including the police, that he had searched for his inexplicably missing wife in Central Park on the afternoon of July 7 and there allegedly found the suntan oil and towel she had taken with her when she left the apartment at 11:00 A.M. Like his wife, he was 29 years old when she vanished. That evening, he went to the home of his friend, Dr. Scott Baranoff. He saw three different doctors. A King County Superior Court jury today found Robert Parker guilty of two counts of aggravated murder in the stabbing and strangulation of two Shoreline-area I wanted her to stop yelling at me and I attacked her, Bierenbaum said, according to a hearing transcript obtained by the network. She was also determined to make it clear to defendant that she would use a letter, written to her by his psychiatrist warning her of the danger he posed to her, in order to humiliate him with his professional peers should he refuse to meet her divorce settlement demands. Armed with circled apartment rental ads the day before she disappeared, the victim declared to her close friend, Denise Kasenbaum, that she was leaving defendant that weekend. ), rendered November 29, 2000, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of murder in the second degree, and sentencing him to a term of 20 years to life should be affirmed. He returned it after one hour and fifty-six minutes, giving him time enough to fly round trip approximately 165 miles over a part of the Atlantic Ocean. He urges now-as he did at trial-that the court could have served the People's purpose adequately by only allowing the People to use the letter to inform the jury that the letter existed, and stipulating that its unspecified contents would embarrass defendant. According to the Times, she had talked Bierenbaum into seeking psychiatric help for his violent streak. Thinking for a Change: Encouraging Positive Change in Incarcerated Individuals, News Spotlight: Cultural Programming at DOC, News Spotlight: DOC Transgender Housing Policy, Jill Getty Appointed to the Indeterminate Sentence Review Board, Reentry Matters Celebrating Second Chance Month, Copyright 2023 Washington State Department of Corrections. A few weeks after his wife disappeared, defendant began dating a nurse whom he knew from Maimonides Hospital where they were employed. Therefore, in the aggregate, the People convincingly advance the conclusion that the jury's verdict was correct. Jake Massey. Rather, the tape's contents clearly demonstrate the feasibility of the People's theory of this case, a theory which all of the circumstantial proof together overwhelmingly shows. The defense argues that these rulings were improper because: 1) there was no evidentiary foundation to justify the opinion evidence and the scenario depicted in the video demonstration, i.e., that they were purportedly based on speculation; and because 2) these forms of evidence are extremely potent, inflammatory, and therefore they unduly prejudiced defendant in a case like this where, according to him, there is no proof to support the opinions or the scenario shown on tape. Another woman whom he dated in Las Vegas in 1995 asked him on their first date whether he had ever been married. However, in the July 8 interview, he had specifically denied that the reason she left the apartment at 11:00 A.M. to sunbathe in Central Park was related to an argument that morning. Gail Katz Bierenbaum./Robert Bierenbaum. In a domestic violence homicide, as this clearly is, it is highly probative-quite often far outweighing any prejudice-that a couple's marriage was strife-ridden and that defendant previously struck and/or threatened the spouse-victim (see People v. La France, 182 A.D.2d 598, 599-600, 583 N.Y.S.2d 835, lv. After he hung up and she asked him whether under the circumstances she should pack her things and vacate the apartment, he told her not to worry because he doubt[s] it is Gail. Although he had expressed some apparent frustration because the police were insisting he come to the terminal at that hour, he complied. Sgt. 20 [2]). (Id.). He also gave inconsistent statements about his wifes disappearance to various women he dated after Katz vanished. I told him that any information is useful. 831), a physician is required to disclose to the extent necessary to protect a threatened interest. ABC News reports Robert Bierenbaum made the confession during a parole board hearing in December 2020, about 36 years after his wife, Gail Katz, went missing in New York City. We disagree. To the contrary, it was her professional opinion, based on three years of treating the deceased once or twice weekly, that she was not suicidal. The Washington State Department of Corrections acknowledges that its facilities, offices and operations are on the ancestral lands and customary territories of Indigenous Peoples, Tribes and Nations. His flight path took him over the ocean. They both complained many times to many people that their marriage was loveless and their life together was stormy. Dalsass waited until 12:30 A.M. and left the first of approximately eight messages on defendant's home answering machine and at his work number during the ensuing week. Defendant himself said his wife told him she wanted a divorce. However, the court, while prohibiting publication of its specific factual contents to the jury, did allow the jury to know that the letter warned the victim of the danger defendant posed to her. We therefore reject as unpreserved defendant's present position regarding the video's admissibility, not because we revere form over substance, but, rather, out of our recognition of the indisputable need during a trial for clear language announcing candid and specific positions, after which judges may issue fitting rulings. But last week, a Manhattan jury found Dr. Bierenbaum guilty of killing his first wife and dumping her body from an airplane. Doheny v. Lacy, 168 N.Y. 213, 223-224, 61 N.E. One of the biggest challenges, the former prosecutor said, was to convince a jury that Bierenbaum could fly a plane and push Katzs body from the aircraft at the same time. 93 N.Y.2d 946, 694 N.Y.S.2d 337, 716 N.E.2d 172 [prior assault admissible]; People v. Jones, 289 A.D.2d 1010, 735 N.Y.S.2d 276, lv. He told her friend, Dr. Feis, that they had a severe argument the day of her disappearance, more severe than he had originally described to her and to various other people. Later on July 14, at a meeting at Det. The only thing more shocking may be how he tried to hide the body. Defendant also disputes the instructions' adequacy, and, beyond that-in addition to urging this Court to reject the notion of a background exception to the hearsay rule-he further argues that the testimony recounting the victim's out-of-court statements was largely unreliable. Gail Katz once called her sister, weeping, and said that her husband tried drowning her cat in a toilet at their Upper East Side apartment, Alayne Katz said. He can hardly claim with any credibility that an interlude of that nature and length slipped his mind when he spoke to the police and others on the first day, or, indeed, at least four times during the first week, following his wife's unexplained disappearance. In fact, the doorman did not speak to defendant July 7 and could not recall seeing either defendant or the deceased that day. They also proved that it was also feasible for him to so transport the bag containing the decedent's remains-whether disarticulated or intact-to Caldwell Airport in Fairfield, New Jersey, and load it aboard a Cessna 172 plane directly from the car parked alongside on the tarmac, all unnoticed. The call came from the police who insisted that he immediately come in to view a woman they had found at the New York Port Authority Bus Terminal, someone they thought might be his missing wife. https://t.co/ZGewROXCaQ pic.twitter.com/qwTytMjU2s. As a cameraman in a helicopter filmed the recreation, a New York City police officer shoved a duffel bag filled with 110 pounds of rice and sand from a Cessna 172 three times, unassisted, the newspaper said. The December parole hearing at which he admitted his guilt was unsuccessful. Most of the victim's hearsay statements, in one way or another, bespoke this couple's marital strife and unhappiness, a perception defendant himself shared and repeatedly admitted. Investigators believe Bierenbaum strangled her in their Upper East Side apartment before disposing of the body, the article said. Dr. Robert Bierenbaum, a trained pilot serving 20 years to life in prison, admitted to the crime at a parole hearing for the first time since his wife, Gail Katz, 29, Ron DeSantis is making an announcement in Titusville, After Disney sues DeSantis, Central Florida Tourism Oversight District board to sue back, Boy, 14, dies after being shot over the weekend at Dezerland Park on I-Drive in Orlando. In 2000, former plastic surgeon Robert Bierenbaum was convicted of the 1985 murder of his wife Gail Katz. They further established that it was possible for defendant, also alone, to pilot the Cessna 172 over the Atlantic Ocean as much as 85 miles east of the shoreline, maintain sufficient control of this relatively easy-to-operate plane so as to singlehandedly throw these human remains from the air into the ocean, and then land back at the same airport, all in less than two hours of flight time. Her remains have never been found, although a body washed ashore in Staten Island that investigators initially believed to be Katz Bierenbaum. We recognize that the law most often views consciousness of guilt evidence as weak-but not always. In addition, he made contradictory statements to the police and others about whether he cleaned his living room rug shortly after July 7, telling the police he did not, but telling the victim's friend, Dr. Feis, and others that he had. However, in 1982, in People v. Lipsky, 57 N.Y.2d 560, 457 N.Y.S.2d 451, 443 N.E.2d 925, the Court of Appeals overruled Ruloff. If this had happened in 2021 Robert Bierenbaum would have been in handcuffs immediately, Bibb told the network. However, defendant said he would not be home until later, as he had plans to dine out-after an interview which had focused on his wife's sudden disappearance just 34 hours earlier. Robert Bierenbaum, a former plastic surgeon, confessed to the 1985 killing of his wife, Gail Katz, during a parole hearing in December 2020 He said he strangled her to Dalsass could not speak to defendant to obtain that vital information until the July 14 interview. That key factor in the context of marital or other intimate relationships frequently differentiates domestic violence assaults and homicides-wherein prior bad acts have often been deemed admissible during the People's direct case-from other cases wherein evidence of past assaultive behavior against people other than the victim has most properly been precluded. The magic didnt last long. However, apparently also on July 8, defendant told the victim's therapist, Dr. Sybil Baran, that he and the victim had argued and that she'd gone off in a huff; 8. Gail Katz reported the assault at a local police precinct, but nothing came of the report. Apart from the fact that defendant's alternate theories of his victim's demise have no evidentiary support, the existing evidence itself also refutes them. 3in. In our role of reviewing the sufficiency of trial evidence as an appellate court in a purely circumstantial evidence case, we must decide whether a guilty verdict is based on legally sufficient evidence by determin [ing] whether any valid line of reasoning and permissible inferences could lead a rational person to the conclusion reached by the fact finder on the basis of the evidence at trial, viewed in the light most favorable to the People [citations omitted] (People v. Williams, 84 N.Y.2d 925, 926, 620 N.Y.S.2d 811, 644 N.E.2d 1367). In addition, he had, the day before (7/13), told Det. 576 ratings36 reviews. at 569, 457 N.Y.S.2d 451, 443 N.E.2d 925). In considering whether this defendant's behavior and statements show evidence of his consciousness of guilt, we find that they unquestionably do. On this appeal, we address the following four issues: First, defendant contends the trial evidence is legally insufficient and the verdict is against the weight of the evidence. The court did, however, permit the prosecution to adduce testimony that the victim had received a letter from one of these psychiatrists warning her of the danger defendant posed to her, although the justice prohibited the People from introducing the letter itself. We reject the notion that in a case where an alleged homicide is the second alleged violent act against a spouse-instead of, for example, the third, fourth or ninth-the case may not be treated as a domestic violence homicide for purposes of evidentiary rulings. Stream next day on Hulu. A jury found Bierenbaum guilty of second-degree murder in 2000 and sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. I went flying. In late July or early August, defendant asked her out, and they became intimate on their first date. At the time, the plastic surgeon claimed innocence, but that has all changed. Parker was Should we answer that inquiry in the affirmative, we next must weigh the relative probative force of conflicting testimony and the relative strength of conflicting inferences that may be drawn from the testimony (People ex rel.
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