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. 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). Ive waited a very,very long time for this day. She wanted to cool off and he waited a couple of hours and then he went looking for her and he found the towel and the suntan lotion but she was gone. Also, shortly after she vanished, he told his Southampton summer landlord that after his wife left he went through her drawers and found cocaine, prompting him to believe she went off with drug dealers. Furthermore, in a case based on circumstantial evidence-as this is-we must also adhere to the dictates of People v. Benzinger, 36 N.Y.2d 29, 32, 364 N.Y.S.2d 855, 324 N.E.2d 334 expressed again in People v. Seifert, 152 A.D.2d 433, 440, 548 N.Y.S.2d 971, lv. Consequently, although defendant had contact with Det. 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. 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. NEW YORK Dr. Robert Bierenbaum maintained his innocence in 2000 as he was tried and convicted of killing his first wife 15 years before. Gail Katz Bierenbaum Murder: Her Cause of Death, Copyright 2023 Heavy, Inc. All rights reserved. He didnt understand how to deal with his anger, Bierenbaum said, according to the transcript. 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. He also once choked Gail into unconsciousness after finding her smoking on their balcony. 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. In late July or early August, defendant asked her out, and they became intimate on their first date. Not excluding anything from the time he last saw, going back as much as he can . Defendant later retracted that claim. 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. I went flying. When Dalsass arrived, the crime scene unit was only allowed to search for fingerprints, the victim's diary and her address book. I wanted her to stop yelling at me and I attacked her, Bierenbaum told the parole board, according to the transcript. In 2000, former plastic surgeon Robert Bierenbaum was convicted of the 1985 murder of his wife Gail Katz. However, the evidence also conclusively establishes that he rented and flew a Cessna 172 airplane beginning at 4:30 P.M. that day from Caldwell Airport in Fairfield, New Jersey and returned two hours later at 6:30 P.M. Since none of the three of these relatives was involved in providing defendant treatment nor subject to any other privilege (see Poppe v. Poppe, 3 N.Y.2d 312, 165 N.Y.S.2d 99, 144 N.E.2d 72 [marital privilege inapplicable where one spouse wrongs another]; People v. Davis, 226 A.D.2d 125, 640 N.Y.S.2d 53, lv. Kieran Crowley. He faces 25 years to life and is to be sentenced on Nov. 20. O'Malley inquiring how the investigation was proceeding and met with him on July 13. Bierenbaum has been eligible for parole since October 2020. On July 8, 1985, Bierenbaum called the police and reported his wife missing. 79 N.Y.2d 808, 580 N.Y.S.2d 174, 588 N.E.2d 72.) The company is family owned and highly values relationships often going beyond the call of duty to help a customer. denied 92 N.Y.2d 893, 680 N.Y.S.2d 57, 702 N.E.2d 842). This conclusion is effortlessly drawn not nearly so much because he began dating so soon, but much more because of his obvious and expressed confidence his wife would never return. 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]). I opened the door and then took her body out of the airplane over the ocean, he said, according to the Daily News. They argue that when certain established facts are juxtaposed with other proven circumstances, defendant's multiple contradictions and omissions are patently incriminating. 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. The trial justice rejected the People's pre-trial request to call defendant's treating psychiatrists and psychologist as witnesses to testify about factual matters and opinions connected to their treatment of defendant, including the conversations they had with the victim and defendant's parents, after defendant's consent was procured. Defendant offered that Gail had, years earlier, attempted suicide. 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). Significantly, he omitted telling his father that he had flown an airplane for nearly two hours that very afternoon. The justice allowed the jury to learn only of its existence and nature, but not of its specific contents beyond its warning to the victim that defendant posed a threat to her. We also conclude that even if a different finding were somehow deemed reasonable, there can be no rational view after weigh[ing] the relative probative force of conflicting testimony and the relative strength of conflicting inferences that may be drawn from the testimony,'(People v. MacCracken ex rel. Former NY surgeon admits killing wife, throwing body from airplane in 1985 (NCD). I went flying. They both complained many times to many people that their marriage was loveless and their life together was stormy. As for any suggested theory that someone other than defendant killed her, no proof exists in this record which is even remotely consistent with such speculation, and there is no one other than defendant Bierenbaum who, like he, had the motive or had the exclusive opportunity to kill her at the time and place where the victim was last seen alive; and, surely, there was no one who signaled his obvious guilt by covering and distorting the truth as this defendant repeatedly did. In considering whether this defendant's behavior and statements show evidence of his consciousness of guilt, we find that they unquestionably do. While the attorneys and the court may have intuitively suspected what was on each other's mind, the legal process has not become, nor should it be, guesswork, mind reading, or fortune telling. 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. Forever in our hearts.. Those opinions, contrary to defendant's argument, did not endanger the jury's objectivity, as the record in no way suggests that they were delivered in anything other than a dispassionate and brief manner. 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. 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. By 1990, Bierenbaum had relocated to Las Vegas and opened a plastic surgery practice there, ABC News reported. Robert Bierenbaum, who is serving a sentence of 20 years to life in prison, revealed the details of the 1985 murder during a December 2020 parole hearing whose We recognize that as a general proposition false statements are a relevant but weak form of evidence. Unless the patient waives the privilege, a person authorized to practice medicine shall not be allowed to disclose any information which he acquired in attending a patient in a professional capacity, and which was necessary to enable him to act in that capacity [emphasis added]. Something that might be very innocent might develop into a lead where she might be. Defendant correctly argues that the victim's statements during her telephone call to Hillard Wiese do not constitute excited utterances. As the Court of Appeals recently wrote in People v. Vasquez, 88 N.Y.2d 561, 579, 647 N.Y.S.2d 697, 670 N.E.2d 1328: An excited utterance is one made under the immediate and uncontrolled domination of the senses, and during the brief period when consideration of self-interest could not have been brought fully to bear by reasoned reflection (People v. Brown, 70 N.Y.2d [513] at 518, 522 N.Y.S.2d 837, 517 N.E.2d 515). 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. 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 Defendant next argues that the claimed relevancy of the Tarasoff letter does not justify its introduction because its prejudicial effect outweighs its probative value. In fact, defendant even misstated to Det. The victim's contested statements meet virtually all these enumerated criteria. Gail Katz is pictured in a family photo. Further, he told Dalsass, in some detail, that on Saturday afternoon, July 6, while he and Gail shopped at various local stores, they argued about finances and other matters which he refused to disclose. It is this inappropriate and distracting inference which the Molineux ruling and its progeny aim to bar. In 1984, she was so unhappy that she consulted a divorce lawyer. Defendant described differently to different people the items the victim took and the clothes she wore when she purportedly left to sunbathe in Central Park, and whether she was then wearing shoes and her engagement ring; 3. In a December parole hearing, however, 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.). The victim, whom Wiese occasionally saw at family gatherings, telephoned him at his office one afternoon in the fall of 1983. Dalsass that he and his wife had argued that Sunday morning. While no one other than the victim and defendant was present to observe what transpired in the marital dwelling on the morning of July 7, the inference from the foregoing circumstantial facts is most compelling, if not irresistible, that they had a hostile confrontation that weekend about the future of their marriage, its serious problems, and how each would deal with them. Defendant himself said his wife told him she wanted a divorce. Exposing these transgressions, if it did not disgrace him, would most certainly compromise his professional standing, damage his personal reputation, and injure his short- and long-term career plans and income potential. dr bob bierenbaum parole 2020 CMI is a proven leader at applying industry knowledge and engineering expertise to solve problems that other fabricators cannot or will not take on. Finally, the court's cautionary instructions to the jury were more than adequate to assure a relevant and fair consideration of this evidence and avoid prejudicial impact. Furthermore, the statements were made mostly to those close to her, in contexts completely devoid of coercion, not in response to anyone's questioning, nor under circumstances at all suggestive of any attempt to curry anyone's favor. Please try again. I was stunned because I always thought that that day would never come, that he would own up, take responsibility for having killed his wife.. But, as the law requires us to look at the body of proof as a whole, we are convinced it paints a clear picture of a defendant's guilt, and that the jury's verdict is both supported by legally sufficient evidence and entirely consistent with its weight. 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. WebNEW YORK Dr. Robert Bierenbaum maintained his innocence in 2000 as he was tried and convicted of killing his first wife 15 years before. Bierenbaum was on the staff of Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn. In a December parole hearing, however, Bierenbaum, now 66, admitted for the first time that he strangled Gail Katz, 29, in July 1985. Surely, one can argue as defendant does that any single aggressive act or threat, or a series of them, can suggest to a jury a general propensity to behave aggressively. 286). Finally, this evidence shows that this defendant was motivated and had an intent to harm this victim. He then drove her body to an airstrip in Caldwell, N.J., and dumped it into the Atlantic Ocean from a single-engine private plane. Of course, if one were to evaluate each item of evidence in isolation, a different conclusion might be reached for at least some sequestered items. After the verdict,Snyder ordered him jailed to await sentencing. Defendant contends that the court improperly allowed the prosecution to adduce testimony, and otherwise refer to evidence, that defendant was violent, and that he choked his wife to the point of unconsciousness in late 1983. Therefore, the trial justice's ruling was a careful and completely reasonable exercise of judicial discretion. 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. 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. Defendant and Dr. Feis spoke daily that first week, but during the first few calls she urged him to contact the police and to speak to the doorman.