JULY 7, 2000

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced today the conviction of a Forest Hills man who together with an accomplice plotted the robbery and murder of an acquaintance whom he thought might have cash in his apartment.

District Attorney Brown identified the defendant as Keith Knoesel, 41, of 76-66 Austin Street, Forest Hills. He was convicted of murder in the second degree, robbery, burglary and grand larceny after a 3½ week jury trial. Supreme Court Justice Robert Hanophy will sentence the defendant who faces 100 years to life in prison on August 3, 2000.

District Attorney Brown said, "This was a particularly depraved murder. After first identifying their ‘target’ - a 44 year old acquaintance of Knoesel’s - they went to his apartment ostensibly to visit him and viciously attacked their victim. They ransacked the victim’s apartment over a number of days while the man’s body lay there. These individuals even moved their victim’s body and turned up the air conditioning to disguise their crime while they visited the apartment and stole his possessions at their leisure."

District Attorney Brown continued, "Keith Knoesel’s accomplice, Steven Smelefsky, a Ridgewood man pled guilty to the murder of Mr. Capobianco and to the murder of Mr. Louis Thumudo, both capital murder cases, in September 1999. On the night of July 31st, Steven Smelefsky and Keith Knoesel went to the home of an acquaintance, Mr. Capobianco, to rob him. Once inside his apartment Smelefsky stabbed the victim while his co-defendant struck him over the head with a bottle. After the murder the defendants fled but returned to the apartment over the next few days to steal other property. They made more than 25 trips to various banks using the victim’s credit cards and cash cards to empty his accounts. While he lay dead, representatives from Discover Card called his apartment to alert him to the unusual activity on his account and to say that the card was being cancelled."

According to the District Attorney, Smelefsky and Knoesel were arrested on August 11, 1998 after Mr. Capobianco’s body was found and police began looking for his missing 1991 Lincoln. During the course of the investigation, detectives of the 104th precinct linked Smelefsky to the murder of another Queens resident whose body had been found in Stroud Township, Pennsylvania in May 1998. Smelefsky and another man, Rubin Ortega, attacked Mr. Louis Thumudo, 92, an elderly man who lived in the same building. The victim was bound and thrown into the trunk of his car by the defendants. They drove his car to Pennsylvania dumping Mr. Thumudo’s body by the side of a road. Smelefsky was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole and his accomplice in that murder, Ruben Ortega, awaits trial.

The District Attorney continued, "The evidence at trial in the murder of Mr. Capobianco was overwhelming. Despite the defendants’ attempt to clean up the apartment to eliminate evidence, Keith Knoesel continued to wear the sneakers he had been wearing when he struck the victim over the head with a bottle of peach schnaps. DNA evidence from blood splattered on the sneakers matched the victim’s DNA and a footprint that the defendants had overlooked matched the sneaker."

Assistant District Attorney Mark Osnowitz, Deputy Chief of the District Attorney's Supreme Court Trials Bureau, which is under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney Daniel Sullivan and the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney Gregory L. Lasak tried the case along with Assistant District Attorney Laura Carroll also of that bureau.