Three lovers covered up the stabbing death of promising young lawyer Robert Wone to protect their “powerful bond,” a prosecutor charged Monday.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Glenn Kirschner told Judge Lynn Leibovitz that roommates and lovers Joseph Price, Victor Zaborsky and Dylan Ward “worked hard and fast to concoct a story and misdirect police” after Wone was stabbed to death in a posh Dupont Circle apartment the friends shared.
Kirschner’s statements opened the high-profile case Monday.
Wone’s Aug. 2, 2006, death is officially unsolved. The three defendants are accused of cleaning up the crime scene to throw investigators off the trail of Wone’s killer.
“At least in the short term, they got away with it,” Kirschner said. “Because Robert Wone’s murder has never been solved.”
Kirschner said the three-way relationship — led by by Price, a powerhouse lawyer at Arent, Fox — was so strong that the lovers agreed to conceal Wone’s murder rather than break up what they called their family.
“This case is full of inextricable and strange circumstances that are a direct part of the cover-up,” Kirschner said in his opening statements.
It’s a case that has drawn national attention because of its lurid subtext and its almost-famous personalities. Zaborsky was the marketing wunderkind who dreamed up the “Got Milk?” slogan for America’s dairies. Price and Zaborsky had been featured in USA Today for a feature on gay parenting. Wone’s widow, Kathy, was represented by Eric Holder, who has since become the U.S. Attorney General.
Wone was a general counsel for Radio Free Asia.
He had worked late on the day he was killed and decided to stay at his friends’ luxury pad. Before midnight, he was found on a guest bed, stabbed to death. Authorities say that Wone had been drugged and raped before being killed.
Authorities say Price, Zaborsky and Ward cleaned Wone’s body, disposed of the murder weapon — replacing it with a separate knife — and then cleaned themselves. The housemates said Wone was killed by an intruder.
The defense is scheduled for opening statements at 2:30 p.m. Monday.
