The trial

 

With that sort of negative public attention, it's perhaps not such a surprise that Joseph Price, Victor Zaborsky and Dylan Ward did something drastic: They waived their right to a trial by jury. It's an unusual move—before accepting their waiver, Judge Lynn Leibovitz carefully made sure that the defendants weren't coerced, confused, ill, or drunk—but the trio's defense teams worried that they wouldn't get an impartial jury. Details of the case were well known in the area and the trio's unusual lifestyle could turn jurors against them: Not only were the men gay, but they were engaged in a three-way partnership, two of them dabbled in dominant-submissive role-playing, and one of them had an extensive collection of sex toys that might or might not be relevant to the alleged crime.

And so Judge Leibovitz decided their case alone. In the Superior Court's periodic rotation, she'd replaced Judge Frederick H. Weisberg—despite protests from the defense. Leibovitz, 51, is the daughter of New York State Supreme Court Justice William Leibovitz. She graduated from Brown University and studied law at Georgetown. She was long a top prosecutor and deputy director of the U.S. Attorney's Office's homicide division; in 2010 she was known as a tough judge.

Prosecutors didn't try to prove assault, or that Wone had been injected with a paralytic agent. They focused on three charges: conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and, for Price, evidence tampering. Assistant U.S. Attorney Glenn L. Kirschner accused Price of being the lead conspirator. He said Price held all the power in the trio—and the money.

Facing off against Kirschner was a team of six well-known, successful defense attorneys. Bernie S. Grimm had won fame appearing as a legal commentator on television. Robert J. Spagnoletti had served as Attorney General of Washington, D.C. David Schertler had done impressive work as a prosecutor, as had Thomas G. Connolly, who'd sued the Justice Department for naming Steven J. Hatfill in the 2001 anthrax mailing case.

Judge Leibovitz said she personally believed that the men knew who killed Robert Wone—but that the prosecution had failed to prove their guilt on any charge beyond a reasonable doubt. She didn't believe that there was an intruder that night, as the defense claimed, because there were no signs of forced entry and nothing was stolen. Nor did Leibovitz think Price's troubled younger brother Michael was involved, as others have speculated; she noted that the three men simply did not act or speak as if they thought he was behind the murder. It would be logical for the men to suspect Michael Price, according to Leibovitz; that they did not suspect him made her think that they might know who really had killed Wone.

Leibovitz said that she did not think the three men planted the knife found next to Wone, and that she believed that it was in fact the murder weapon. The prosecution did not convince her that Ward or Zaborsky had improperly handled the knife after the murder. She suggested that Price may have pulled the knife from Wone's body and wiped it off, then lied to police about this—but she was not certain of this beyond a reasonable doubt, and she considered it plausible that he may have lied about touching the knife simply because he was embarrassed about doing something so stupid at a crime scene.

Read Leibovitz's full verdict. 

Leibovitz did not seem to have much sympathy for the men she exonerated. She described Price as arrogant and self-centered, and she noted that Ward and Zaborsky seem to have been strangely disinterested in helping police solve the murder of their friend in their own home.

The Estate of Robert Wone is bringing a $20 million civil suit against the trio, charging them with wrongful death. A civil suit doesn't have as high a standard for proof as the criminal charges that Judge Leibovitz heard. Right or wrong, Price, Ward and Zaborsky may still find themselves held responsible in the death of Robert Wone.