A Florida man accused of being involved in his estranged wife's disappearance in Spain was back in federal court Wednesday.
David Knezevich's defense presented a motion to have access to medical records, witness identities and the Madrid apartment where the victim, Ana María Knezevich Henao, was living when she vanished on Feb. 2, after a man in a motorcycle helmet spraypainted the lens of a security camera outside her residence. She had moved there from South Florida late year after her split from Knezevich.
The judge granted that motion.
Criminal defense expert Erick Cruz, who has no connection to the case, says this may make it easier to fight the case.
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"In this case, the Spanish laws do permit a lot of secrecy surrounding evidence of criminal wrongdoing and evidence that's going to be used in a criminal investigation, and so that has hampered the defense's ability to obtain that evidence. And so that's why they are asking Judge Williams to have the US Attorney's Office assist them in obtaining that evidence," Cruz explained.
Federal prosecutor Lacee Monk said in court in May that prosecutors believe Ana is dead and that the FBI and Spain’s national police have substantial evidence that Knezevich is behind his wife’s disappearance, which happened five weeks after she left him and moved to Madrid.
She said the couple had been going through a nasty divorce after 13 years of marriage, fighting over how to split a substantial fortune they had amassed from their computer firm and real estate investments. He didn’t want her to have an equal share, Monk said.
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Monk said Knezevich flew to Turkey from Miami six days before Ana’s disappearance, then immediately traveled the 600 miles (950 kilometers) to his native Serbia — she said he was covering his tracks. There, he rented a Peugeot automobile.
On Feb. 2, security video shows him 1,600 miles (2,600 kilometers) from Serbia in a Madrid hardware store using cash to buy duct tape and the same brand of spray paint the man in the motorcycle helmet used on the security camera, Monk said. His cellphone connected to Facebook from Madrid. The man in the motorcycle helmet is the same height and has the same eyebrows as Knezevich, she said.
License plates that were stolen in Madrid in that period were spotted by police plate readers both near a motorcycle shop where an identical helmet was purchased and on Ana’s street the night she disappeared. Hours after the helmeted man left the apartment, a Peugeot identical to the one Knezevich rented and sporting the stolen plates was recorded going through a toll booth near Madrid. The driver could not be seen because the windows were tinted.
The morning after his wife disappeared, Knezevich texted a Colombian woman he met on a dating app to translate into “perfect Colombian” Spanish two English messages, Monk said. After she sent those back, two of Ana’s friends received those exact messages from her cellphone. They said she was going off with a man she had just met, something they say she would have never done. Monk said that proves Knezevich had his wife’s cellphone.
Finally, when Knezevich returned the Peugeot to the rental agency five weeks later, it had been driven 4,800 miles (7,700 kilometers), its windows had been tinted, two identifying stickers had been removed and there was evidence the license plate had been removed and then put back.
She said Knezevich has a strong incentive to flee as he is looking at a potential life sentence if convicted of kidnapping and death if it can be be shown his wife has been killed.
Knezevich's defense attorney Jayne Weintraub said at the time that the government’s case is “built on assumptions.”
