John Jefferson
The lawyers for the Florida man accused of kidnapping his still-missing wife in Spain have questioned whether the U.S. District Court’s Southern District of Florida has jurisdiction over the case.
David Knezevich’s attorneys on Tuesday filed a motion to reopen a detention hearing. Knezevich is facing kidnapping charges in the disappearance of his estranged wife Ana Maria Knezevich, 40, who hasn’t been seen since early February. The couple lived in South Florida and were reportedly going through a contentious divorce. She flew to Madrid in late December. Her husband is accused of driving across Europe from his native Serbia to Madrid where he allegedly went inside her apartment building wearing a helmet and spray-painted surveillance cameras. He then walked out holding a large suitcase, federal officials say.
Agents arrested David Knezevich as he arrived at Miami International Airport on May 4. He’s been in federal custody ever since. His lawyers filed the motion Tuesday to request a judge set a bond. Attorney Jayne C. Weintraub noted that while U.S. District Magistrate Edwin G. Torres determined Knezevich may be a flight risk, he rejected the prosecution’s argument that the suspect was a danger to the community. Torres also said detaining Knezevich based on flight risk was a “close call.”
Weintraub wrote that the defense received about 66 FBI 302 forms — a report memorializing an agent’s interview with a witness — as part of the discovery process. The reports “contain new information that contradicts the allegations in the complaint and indictment.”
“Second, they contain additional information that makes clear the Court has no jurisdiction over this alleged kidnapping,” Weintraub wrote. “Third, they contain information that makes clear, beyond any doubt, that the government is simply using this alleged kidnapping charge as a means of detaining Defendant while it conducts a massive international murder investigation.”
The crime listed on the 302s are “Foreign murder of a US National by a US National,” according to Weintraub. While Ana Knezevich remains missing, prosecutors believe she is dead.
Left Ana Knezevich, left, is seen in a picture with her friend Sanna Rameau. Right: Knezevich. Inset: a poster announcing the disappearance of Knezevich (via Asociación Sosdesaparecidos).
Defense lawyers also argued that David Knezevich is not a “man of means,” as the government claims. Weintraub wrote that most of her client’s assets are tied up in real estate that is “heavily mortgaged.” A conservatorship filed by his wife’s brother also means that he may not have access to that real estate, anyway. Knezevich has pleaded not guilty and says he was in Serbia when Spanish police alerted him about his wife’s disappearance.
Weintraub also wrote that there are “disparities” in the prosecution’s timeline regarding David Knezevich’s alleged appearance on surveillance cameras at his wife’s apartment building. Because of all these factors, he should be released until his trial, his attorneys argued.
Prosecutors also presented evidence during a court hearing on Tuesday, Miami ABC affiliate WPLG reported. An FBI agent testified that license plate readers in Madrid picked up the plate David Knezevich allegedly stole and placed on his rental car. The agent also reportedly testified cellphone data places Knezevich in Madrid at the time of his wife’s disappearance.
As Law&Crime previously reported, the FBI in a criminal complaint laid out its case. Ana Maria Knezevich flew from Miami to Madrid on Dec. 26. Her family and friends lost contact with her after Feb. 2. She and her friends had a trip planned to Barcelona however she never showed up, cops said. All of her nonautomatic bank transactions stopped following that date, the complaint said. She also was charged a fee on Feb. 10 for missing a reservation at a Madrid restaurant, according to the FBI.
Friends and family told federal agents that the couple were going through a contentious divorce because he did not want to split marital assets with her, the complaint said. The victim was “very fearful” of her husband because she believed he was “surreptitiously monitoring her whereabouts,” agents wrote.
According to Spanish authorities, surveillance cameras captured Ana entering her apartment in Madrid around 2:20 p.m. on Feb. 2. It’s the last time she was seen alive. The complaint says about 9:30 p.m. the same day a man wearing a helmet entered the apartment building after some people were walking out. The man, holding a can of spray paint, walks down a set of stairs and uses the spray paint to cover the lens, according to the complaint.
The paint didn’t completely cover the lens and still showed a man put a piece of duct tape over the door lock to prevent it from closing, the complaint said.
“Notably, the male, who looks directly at the camera, has physical characteristics that resemble those of [David] Knezevich,” federal agents wrote.
Authorities believe David Knezevich drove from Serbia to Madrd where he bought spray paint at a store (right) and went to his estranged wife’s Ana Knezevich’s apartment where he spray painted a surveillance camera (left). He was arrested in Miami. (FBI)
The man is then seen leaving the apartment about 10:30 p.m., apparently holding a suitcase.
Spanish authorities completed a welfare check on Feb. 4 for Ana Knezevich but did not find her. Her cellphone, laptop and chargers were missing, feds noted. Cops also noticed the spray paint can brand and tracked the purchase to a store in Madrid. Surveillance camera footage from the store showed a man who appeared to be David Knezevich buying the paint along with two rolls of duct tape, feds wrote.
FBI agents also spoke with a Colombian woman who previously met David Knezevich on a dating app. She told agents that on Feb. 3 he allegedly asked her to translate a message from English into “perfect Colombian.” He claimed he had a friend from Serbia who was writing a script about a Colombian character and wanted it to sound “authentic,” the complaint said.
“I met someone wonderful!!” the message to be translated reportedly said. “He has a summer house about 2h from Madrid. We are going there now and I will spend a few days there. Signal is spotty. I’ll call you when I get back.”
Other messages allegedly said “Yesterday after therapy I needed a walk and he approached me on the street!” and “Amazing connection. Like I never had before[.]”
Ana Knezevich’s best friend, Sanna Rameau, said those messages just didn’t make sense.
“She doesn’t do those things,” Rameau told the Law&Crime Network’s Sierra Gillespie. “It was worded very differently than how she writes.”
Rameau said that Knezevich “wouldn’t meet a man in the street and say that she’s going to go away for a few days like that.”
“That is definitely not my friend,” she added, noting that Knezevich had plans to go to Barcelona just days later.
She responded immediately to the “bizarre” message purportedly from her friend.
“I said, what’s happening? What do you mean? I got worried and I said, please share your location. This does not sound safe,” Rameau told Gillespie. “My messages didn’t go through. I got concerned immediately. And then when I heard nothing back from her, first thing Sunday [Feb. 2] morning, I contacted the police in Madrid.”
Knezevich’s brother, Juan Felipe Henao, said he received a similarly odd text from his sister on Feb. 2. It was in Spanish — which Knezevich speaks fluently, having been born in Colombia — but according to Henao, something was off.
“He stated it is not like his sister to do something like this plus the text in Spanish appeared to be translated from English to Spanish via Google translator and the message made no sense whatsoever and was definitely not written by his sister who is fluent in both English and Spanish,” a Ft. Lauderdale police report says.
Henao was “very concerned something bad happened to Ana,” the police statement says, noting that he told officials that his sister was going through a tough divorce.
“Juan stated that Ana and David are going through a nasty divorce and there is a substantial amount of money on the line to be split up between the two and David is not happy about it,” the police statement says. “Juan advised that Ana has a long time friend in Spain so she traveled there three months ago to clear her head.”
Right: Text messages between Ana Knezevich and her friend, Sanna Rameau, shortly before Knezevich is believed to have disappeared (Law&Crime via Sanna Rameau). Right: Texts between Knezevich and her brother Felipe Henao shortly before she is believed to have disappeared (Law&Crime via Felipe Henao).
According to the FBI, the Colombian woman who translated the message for David Knezevich told her mother about her new love interest. She Googled him and saw news stories that said he was a suspect in his wife’s disappearance, the complaint said.
Agents also were able to track down the suspect’s movements, starting on Jan. 27 when he flew out of Miami International Airport to Istanbul, Turkey before traveling to his native Belgrade, Serbia. He allegedly left Serbia on Jan. 30 and returned Feb. 5. Agents noted it takes around 26 hours to drive the 2,592 kilometers (about 1,600 miles) from Belgrade to Madrid. They also learned that David Knezevich rented a Peugeot 308 between Jan. 29 and March 15.
The rental car agency noticed that when he returned the vehicle, the windows were tinted and license plates changed. David Knezevich had driven the vehicle for over 7,600 kilometers (more than 4,700 miles) while he was in possession of the car.
Spanish authorities also discovered that someone had reported their license plates stolen. The plates were allegedly discovered on the street of the victim’s apartment. The plates also reportedly turned up at two toll booths outside of Madrid but the driver can’t be seen because of the tinted windows.
Agents then spoke with an employee of the alleged kidnapper’s business. She told agents that David Knezevich forced her to pose as his missing wife over the phone to cancel insurance policies and open a new bank account, the FBI said. In one of the calls, children could be heard in the background and, as agents noted, Ana Knezevich does not have kids.
David Knezevich allegedly told the employee that the calls had to be made in order for people to be paid.
“Knezevich further stated ‘I cannot call with my voice because I sound like a guy,”” the complaint said.
Law&Crime’s Marisa Sarnoff contributed to this report.
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