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Moreover, it is unlikely that one's body would vanish without a trace in the aftermath of self-inflicted death. 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. Based on what he said at trial, the interval could have been as long as twenty-four hours, hardly a typical time span to qualify as an excited utterance. Second, the record is totally devoid of evidence about what transpired during these many intervening hours to enable the trier of fact to determine, based on the activities of the declarant in the interim, whether the declarant had the opportunity to reflect (id.). at 184). O'Malley that the building doorman said he last saw her leave the building shortly after 11 o'clock on July 7. By 1990, Bierenbaum had relocated to Las Vegas and opened a plastic surgery practice there, ABC News reported. Doheny v. Lacy, 168 N.Y. 213, 223-224, 61 N.E. Defendant also argues that although this contested hearsay information, emanating from the victim, was admitted purportedly as legitimate background evidence, there is no background exception to the hearsay rule, and, beyond that, this background information was highly prejudicial, and, therefore, the trial justice should have precluded it. When he exhibited hesitation in responding to her, she jokingly asked him if he had killed his wife. Robert Bierenbaum (born July 22, 1955) is an American former plastic surgeon and convicted murderer. Not a single shred of evidence in this record supports any of these bizarre claims; 5. He didnt understand how to deal with his anger, Bierenbaum said, according to the transcript. 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. As a part of that contention, defendant also asserts that the trial justice erred in allowing Hillard Wiese, an attorney and the victim's cousin, to testify about the victim's purported excited utterances describing the choking event. The former plastic surgeon, who is in prison for the killing, admitted to the parole board in December 2020 that he strangled Katz, 29, before loading her body onto a Cessna 172 and tossing it into the Atlantic Ocean. On July 7, 1985, at 4:30 P.M., he rented a Cessna 172 plane at Caldwell Airport in Fairfield, New Jersey. 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. Contested are the way and reason her life ended, the way her killer disposed of her body immediately thereafter, and her killer's identity and state of mind. 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. Thus, it is impossible for a court to conclude safely that her motivation was untouched by economic self-interest or unencumbered by concerns about legal strategy. To begin with, Wiese was unable to reliably estimate how long before his cousin called him that the choking incident occurred. The network is featuring the case Friday night on 20/20.. Courts have also considered the status or relationship to the declarant of the person to whom the statement was made *** whether there was a coercive atmosphere, whether it was made in response to questioning and whether the statements reflect an attempt to shift blame or curry favor (James, supra, 93 N.Y.2d at 642-643, 695 N.Y.S.2d 715, 717 N.E.2d 1052 [citing United U.S. v. Matthews, 20 F.3d 538, 546; other citations omitted]). Nevertheless, he contradicted himself among various versions and aspects of those statements. The December parole hearing at which he admitted his guilt was unsuccessful. denied 96 N.Y.2d 921, 732 N.Y.S.2d 637, 758 N.E.2d 663 [previous assault against victim admissible]; People v. Reynoso, 262 A.D.2d 102, 693 N.Y.S.2d 521, lv. Dalsass could not speak to defendant to obtain that vital information until the July 14 interview. Robert Bierenbaum Today: Where Is He Now in 2021? Since there may be reasons other than guilt of the crime charged which would prompt a person to give a false statement, the probative weight of such statements depends upon the facts of the particular case. It is this inappropriate and distracting inference which the Molineux ruling and its progeny aim to bar. 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 In the days, weeks, months and years following his wife's disappearance, defendant made several inconsistent, unfounded or otherwise suspect and incriminating statements. In considering whether this defendant's behavior and statements show evidence of his consciousness of guilt, we find that they unquestionably do. MacCracken v. Miller, 291 N.Y. 55, 62, 50 N.E.2d 542 [other citations omitted]). At the time the deceased disappeared, defendant was a surgical resident at Maimonides Hospital and a licensed pilot. Defendant misstated that the doorman told him he saw the victim on the afternoon of July 7, when in fact the doorman made it clear he saw her last on July 6 and he could not remember whether he saw either the victim or defendant at all on July 7; 2. He also gave inconsistent statements about his wifes disappearance to various women he dated after Katz vanished. He therefore contends it was inadmissible under Nucci v. Proper, 95 N.Y.2d 597, 721 N.Y.S.2d 593, 744 N.E.2d 128 even if it were deemed otherwise allowable. Compounding the significance of that devastating omission-an omission which concealed the very means and opportunity to dispose permanently of his victim's body-is the documentary evidence found in his home several months after July 1985 showing clearly that his written flight log entry for July 7 was changed from July 7 to August 7. Through the testimony of several witnesses, including four expert witnesses-New York City's Chief Medical Examiner, an experienced New York City Police Pilot, an aviation safety inspector, and an airline transport pilot/flight instructor/FAA flight test examiner-the People established that it was physically possible for defendant, a surgical resident and pilot, unassisted, to disarticulate a recently expired body of the victim's size (5ft. 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). Inmate Name BIERENBAUM, ROBERT Sex MALE Date of Birth 07/22/1955 Race / Ethnicity WHITE Custody Status IN CUSTODY Housing / Releasing Facility ATTICA Date Received (Original) 12/22/2000 Date Received (Current) 12/22/2000 Admission Type NEW COMMITMENT County of Commitment NEW YORK Crimes of Conviction Crime: Crystal Bonvillian, Cox Media Group National Content Desk, Former NY surgeon admits killing wife, throwing body from airplane in 1985. In December 1999, prosecutors charged Bierenbaum based on the circumstantial evidence. rendered November 29, 2000, affirmed. Indeed, defendant himself told his father in 1983 that their strife had reached the point of some physical contact, and there is credible testimony that in 1985 defendant was so filled with hostility that he was tempted toward violence against his wife. Jake Massey. First, the court correctly ruled that defendant's objection in the form of a mistrial motion, after summations were completely over, was belated (see People v. Allende, 269 A.D.2d 211, 704 N.Y.S.2d 206, lv. Tarasoff v. Regents of Univ. NEW YORK Dr. Robert Bierenbaum maintained his innocence in 2000 as he was tried and convicted of killing his first wife 15 years before. 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. Getting ready to learn! Robert Bierenbaum admitted to killing wife Gail Katz and throwing her body out of an airplane during a December 2020 parole board hearing, according to a new 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. This complaint-apart from ignoring or underestimating the appropriate, limiting language the court carefully chose to caution and instruct the jury-misconstrues the rationale underlying People v. Molineux, 168 N.Y. 264, 61 N.E. denied 94 N.Y.2d 920, 708 N.Y.S.2d 359, 729 N.E.2d 1158 [crime against spouse extinguishes statutory privilege]; People v. Johnson, 84 N.Y.2d 956, 620 N.Y.S.2d 822, 644 N.E.2d 1378 [no statutory or common law parent/child privilege for adult child under these circumstances]), the court correctly decided that defendant waived the privilege. 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.. 3in. Learn about careers at Cox Media Group. 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. Ex-surgeon confesses throwing wife's body from airplane in 1985 This abundant array of damning circumstantial evidence proves beyond any reasonable doubt that defendant intentionally killed this victim, that he did it on the date, at the time and for the reason the People offered; and that he disposed of her body as the People contend. When defendant returned to their Manhattan apartment, he telephoned his wife's friend and former psychology teacher, Dr. Yvette Feis. He became eligible for parole last October, according to state prison records. 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. There is little or nothing by way of circumstantial evidence that is more relevant or more probative in a circumstantial murder case-especially one involving domestic violence-than the type of evidence at issue on this appeal. Confession: Dr. Robert Bierenbaum and his then-wife, Dr. Janet Cholett, leave court together in October 2000 in New York. 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. Offensive Slang A Jewish-American girl or woman regarded as being pampered or overindulged (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language 935 [4th ed 2000]). The trial justice's carefully balanced decisions allowed the People to show only the existence and the general nature of the letter in order legitimately to probe defendant's motive. In our sufficiency review, we have determined that a valid line of reasoning and permissible inferences could lead a rational person to the conclusion reached by [this jury] on the basis of the evidence at trial, viewed in the light most favorable to the People (People v. Williams, 84 N.Y.2d 925, 926, 620 N.Y.S.2d 811, 644 N.E.2d 1367). 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. Learn more about FindLaws newsletters, including our terms of use and privacy policy. In light of the foregoing, this verdict is supported by legally sufficient evidence and it is thoroughly consistent with the evidentiary weight. On the other hand, by concomitantly excluding the letter itself, suppressing its factual content and prohibiting the proffered testimony of defendant's three treating mental health professionals whom the People had intended to call as witnesses, these rulings protected the remaining, essential aspects of defendant's statutory privilege under CPLR 4504(a). Defendant gave contradictory accounts about whether and why he sent the living room rug out to be cleaned immediately following the decedent's disappearance, but completely withheld that information from the police; 4. Furthermore, when they are read together with the court's cautionary charges wherein the trial justice repeated and emphasized the limited value of this and other related evidence, we firmly believe the record belies his contention that he was denied a fair trial. At FindLaw.com, we pride ourselves on being the number one source of free legal information and resources on the web. 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. When she asked what had happened, he told her his wife may have committed suicide or may have met with foul play, as she had dated a variety of men. Fourth, he urges that the court incorrectly allowed the People to introduce opinion testimony by a medical examiner, and demonstrative and opinion evidence by a police pilot and two other experts, that it is possible for a surgeon/pilot, alone, to dismember a 110-pound body in 10 minutes, load a 36-inch long package containing the body's disarticulated remains onto a small airplane, and, also while alone in the air, throw it into the ocean. After killing Katz, he got rid of her body where no one would find it. He was convicted in October 2000 of having murdered his estranged wife, Gail Katz-Bierenbaum 15 years earlier in their Manhattan apartment on July 7, 1985. Turning next to defendant's hearsay claims, he argues that the trial justice erroneously allowed several People's witnesses to testify that the victim had told them that, inter alia, her marriage was stormy, that she was afraid of defendant, that he was very controlling, that there was much verbal strife between them, that her husband had occasionally made threatening statements to her, that he once choked her in 1983 rendering her unconscious, that she had taken steps to prepare to leave him, and that she had used and intended again to use the Tarasoff letter to threaten him if he failed to meet her divorce demands. I wanted her to stop yelling at me and I attacked her, he said, according to the article. I had to take the rug out to be cleaned.. examined; After Murder Verdict, Town Questions Doctor I went flying. Gail Katz reported the assault at a local police precinct, but nothing came of the report. First, she would threaten to humiliate him by publishing to his professional colleagues and superiors a warning letter she had received from defendant's treating psychiatrist; and, second, she would threaten to expose an alleged Medicare fraud in which she claimed he and his father were allegedly involved. denied 95 N.Y.2d 792, 711 N.Y.S.2d 160, 733 N.E.2d 232; People v. Valez, 256 A.D.2d 135, 682 N.Y.S.2d 162, lv. In other words, they may be admitted only if the acts help establish some element of the crime under consideration (People v. Lewis, 69 N.Y.2d 321, 325, 514 N.Y.S.2d 205, 506 N.E.2d 915). The court said (at 603, 721 N.Y.S.2d 593, 744 N.E.2d 128): Reliability is the sum of the circumstances surrounding the making of the statement that render the declarant worthy of belief. Indeed, this prosecution contention-i.e., that it helped expose defendant's motives-was a valid one, as it is at the heart of the People's case. GRAND FORKS -- The story of Dr. Robert Bierenbaum, a plastic surgeon who practiced in Grand Forks and Minot and later was convicted for the murder of his wife in their Manhattan apartment, will air in a two-hour, special 20/20 program beginning at 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 22, on ABC. His next parole hearing is slated for next month. About midway through their one-year relationship, defendant gave his approval to have Dr. Karnofsky's girlfriend, Sharon, also move into the apartment temporarily. She expressed this homicide theory to Sharon one day while defendant was not home. 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. Matthew Rowley hoisted the bag into the front passenger seat of the plane, a four-seat Cessna 172, similar to the plane investigators said Bierenbaum rented. Indeed, the Lipsky court expressed no hesitancy in holding that the corpus delicti may be established by circumstantial evidence (id. In a December parole hearing, however, Alayne Katz and other witnesses would later testify, however, that they had seen one of the letters, which Gail Katz planned to use in the divorce proceedings. By July, it was against this backdrop that a divorce was virtually inevitable-a situation exacerbated further by defendant's knowledge of his wife's adultery. He was inconsistent about his purported knowledge of his wife's post-July 7 whereabouts, alluding to different theories and purported sightings to different people. Together, the two women looked for and found defendant's flight log. They also manifest his motives to abuse and control her, to quickly end a miserable marriage, and ultimately to keep her from using the Tarasoff letter in a divorce proceeding to humiliate him, damage his reputation, imperil his career and jeopardize his financial future. 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 This couple had a history of angry words and deeds, of threats, and of violence; they harbored a wide range of feelings ranging from ambivalence to profound hostility toward each other, and, beyond their generalized resentment, defendant had evident motives to kill the decedent. Applying these principles to the evidence in this purely circumstantial murder case, our review convinces us that, notwithstanding the facial attractiveness of some of the factual arguments defendant's appellate counsel presents, this guilty verdict, based on the proof this jury heard and saw, is the only fair and reasonable outcome (see People v. Sanchez, 61 N.Y.2d 1022, 1024, 475 N.Y.S.2d 376, 463 N.E.2d 1228). denied 80 N.Y.2d 905, 588 N.Y.S.2d 831, 602 N.E.2d 239; People v. Shorey, 172 A.D.2d 634, 568 N.Y.S.2d 436, lv. Thereafter, commencing in September 1985 and continuing for a period just under one year, defendant invited a medical student, Dr. Roberta Karnofsky, who worked under his direct supervision at Coney Island Hospital, to live with him in the marital apartment. 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. 20 Robert Bierenbaum strangled his wife In People v. Cintron, 95 N.Y.2d 329, 332-333, 717 N.Y.S.2d 72, 740 N.E.2d 217, the Court said that the probative weight of evidence of consciousness of guilt is highly dependent upon the facts of each particular case. In an earlier case, specifically referring to a defendant's false statements, the Court said: In the circumstances of this case, it is difficult to come to any other conclusion than that these false statements indicate a consciousness of guilt. He said he then disposed of her body, the Daily News reported. There is every reason in this record to find that defendant was the last person to see her alive at 11:00 A.M. that Sunday morning. Bierenbaum described himself as immature at the time of the murder, for which he is serving 20 years to life. Powered by. Accordingly, this claim is unpreserved and we decline to review it in the interest of justice (CPL 470.05[2]; People v. Luperon, 85 N.Y.2d 71, 623 N.Y.S.2d 735, 647 N.E.2d 1243). The case continued to nag at Andy Rosenzweig, chief investigator for the Manhattan District Attorneys Office, and he and other detectives began re-interviewing everyone involved in the missing persons case, according to the network. The Charley Project Former NY surgeon admits killing wife, throwing body from airplane in 1985 (NCD). 662, 4 L.Ed.2d 620; People v. Norton, 164 A.D.2d 343, 353, 563 N.Y.S.2d 802, affd. On July 8, 1985, Bierenbaum called the police and reported his wife missing. After all, he made several statements making it appear he had no idea how his wife disappeared, where she was, and when or whether she would ever return. While married to defendant, the victim had an affair with at least one other man; just before the day she disappeared she stated to a friend she was about to tell defendant she wanted a divorce; she had borrowed money to prepare to leave; she said she was seeing one or two other men and that she loved one of them; she was looking for an apartment and was seen with circled newspaper ads for apartment rentals the day before she disappeared and her friend had offered her a place in Connecticut to stay while she got herself resettled. The evidence is also strong that she was determined to confront defendant with her divorce demands. From the beginning, they quarreled frequently. Washington State Department of Corrections (DOC) Upon seeing the transcript of Bierenbaums confession, Alayne Katz said the words sounded like her former brother-in-law. An accomplished pilot, he took her body onto a four-passenger Cessna 172 Nighthawk and, as the plane flew over the Atlantic, tossed it out the aircraft door. He dated a chiropractor for a while before remarrying in 1996 and moving with his new wife, gynecologist Dr. Janet Cholett, to Minot, North Dakota, where they had a daughter together and he opened a successful medical practice. Significantly, he omitted telling his father that he had flown an airplane for nearly two hours that very afternoon. That the victim had once before confronted him with the same letter and her same threat weeks or months before July 7 does not, as defendant now urges, diminish the potential explosiveness of her intended confrontation on the weekend she died, because the testimony is otherwise clear and certain that she once again intended to tell defendant over that weekend that she was divorcing him. The victim would complain also that defendant tried to exert excessive control over her, and she expressed fear of him more than once. Psychiatrist's Warning Letter and Other Hearsay. He was convicted in her death in 2000, but her body was never found. He also failed to mention to both Det. In the former, the previous aggression principally indicates intent, or motive, or identity; whereas in the latter it can predominantly give rise to an inference of propensity. Verbal strife plagued it, express and implied threats uttered by defendant aggravated it, and defendant's admitted violence against his victim during at least one episode surely worsened it. He saw three different doctors. Bierenbaum had been out on $500,000 bail. Because the letter's separate purpose was to warn, and, further, to insure that its disclosure at trial for that valid purpose did not publish its otherwise confidential contents-and thus breach the court's associated preclusion order-the court appropriately placed significant restrictions on the People's use of the letter. 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. She told Wiese she was speaking quickly and softly because she was expecting defendant. At one point while they lived together, on a day that Dr. Karnofsky was angry or annoyed with defendant, and, having heard a number of accusatory answering machine messages directed at defendant, she confronted him to see what his reaction [would be]: What I said to him was, well, I think that if you did this and if it really happened as some people seem to think it did, that perhaps something happened in the apartment and you intentionally or unintentionally-Gail was hurt, you could have put her in one of those big flight bags or duffel bags and carried her out of the apartment since she was very small, put her in the back of your car, drive out to the airport and thrown her body out of the plane. O'Malley that he and his wife had argued the night before she disappeared and continued arguing on the morning of July 7, prompting her to go to Central Park at 11:00 A.M. to cool off.. A seemingly distraught defendant also told Baranoff about the argument, adding that his wife had not yet returned after having left their apartment wearing shorts, a halter top and sandals. 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. To begin with, the court, on a number of occasions during trial and at its conclusion, gave the jury cautionary instructions about the victim's statements and other related evidence, evidence the People had introduced to explain two critical factors, i.e., the state of this marriage and both parties' state of mind. Finally, although the alleged assault she recounted was undoubtedly extremely frightening, the proof shows her mental state so many hours later was not shown to be dominated by the same level of heightened excitement that would normally overwhelm a person in the immediate aftermath of such a recent traumatic shock. Furthermore, on July 14, while with his wife's friend Maryann DeCesare and a group of friends who were searching for her and posting missing person signs in Central Park and elsewhere, defendant quipped that he thought his wife-who was missing for a full week-was on a shopping spree at Bloomingdale's, adding, You know what a JAP1 she was. When the search party returned to the marital apartment-only seven days after his wife's disappearance-defendant volunteered to his mother-in-law, in DeCesare's presence, I wonder why the cat got sick. Finally, this evidence shows that this defendant was motivated and had an intent to harm this victim. In Nucci, the Court set forth the factors relevant to a trial justice's assessment of the reliability of out-of-court-statements which the People proffer as hearsay exceptions. That was the overwhelming opinion of those closest to her, including her gynecologist, her therapist of three years, and her sister, three confidantes in the best position to know. Doctor Convicted in 1985 Missing Body denied 77 N.Y.2d 879, 568 N.Y.S.2d 922, 571 N.E.2d 92; see also People v. Laverpool, 267 A.D.2d 93, 700 N.Y.S.2d 139, lv. 831), a physician is required to disclose to the extent necessary to protect a threatened interest.