"If you were to ask me how George Weber would go, I would not say he'd
be murdered in his apartment by a 16-year-old," said a shell-shocked
Claudia Lamb, a KGO producer who knew Weber since her "first day in
radio" in 1989. "If you asked me, I always thought the cigarettes would
have gotten him."
The trial of that teenager, John Katehis, started yesterday in New York. And his lawyers claimed he was only trying to pick up $60 moving boxes -- not answering a sex fetish-for-money ad.
"George
Weber was a 47-year-old drunk predator of an underage boy by the name
of John Katehis," said defense attorney Jeffrey Schwartz. "He lured this 16-year-old boy to his
lair."
The defense claims Weber pulled a knife during this box-moving party -- and plied the teen with alcohol and cocaine. Katehis, who was "jumpy," defended himself -- by stabbing Weber more than 50 times.
That isn't how the prosecution put it -- because, they have records of Katehis responding to a very explicit sex-for-money ad. Weber and the teen exchanged pictures and e-mails before meeting at the newsman's basement apartment last year. And no cocaine was found in his flat -- nor was booze or coke discovered in Katehis' bloodstream.
"He wasn't warding off any attack. He wasn't high or drunk," said prosecutor Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi. "This
was a vicious, brutal, intentional attack."
Weber's former colleagues, meanwhile, can only shake their heads at either scenario.
"Aside from smoking and liking a cocktail, George didn't seem to have
any of what you might consider bad habits at all," former news anchor Greg Jarrett said.
"Certainly nothing that would threaten his life."
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