MIAMI – A Florida businessman charged in the February disappearance of his ex-wife in Spain pleaded not guilty Monday after federal prosecutors questioned his sale of several properties shortly before she disappeared, saying millions in profits would allow him to flee if was released on bail.
David Knezevich, 36, pleaded guilty during a brief hearing in federal court in Miami. He was arrested by the FBI on May 4 at Miami International Airport as he returned from his native Serbia. He is federally charged with kidnapping his 40-year-old wife, Ana Hedao Knezevich, who remains missing in a case that has drawn international media attention. He is jailed without bail.
Prosecutors and Ana Knezevich’s family believe the naturalized American from Colombia is dead, although her husband has not been charged with killing her. Prosecutors in court documents have called the evidence against him “compelling.”
But Jayne Weintraub, Knezevich’s attorney, has disputed the evidence and plans to seek his release.
In court papers filed late last week, prosecutors argued that Knezevich should remain jailed pending his trial, saying he is both a danger to the community and a flight risk.
The Fort Lauderdale resident, who has dual citizenship in the United States and Serbia, sold six rental homes in South Florida to a buyer the month before Ana Knezevich disappeared from her Madrid apartment on February 2. He sold another to a second buyer three weeks later. , Broward County records show.
The seven sales raised $6 million. The sales include David Knezevich providing large second mortgages to buyers, an arrangement that prosecutors say could give him enough money to flee the country if they paid them off.
Weintraub disputed that, telling The KeynoteUSA in an interview last week that his client has few liquid assets: Second mortgages don’t come due until 2027. Those liquid assets he has now are tied to a court case brought by his wife’s father. . relatives, he said. The couple, who also owned a computer company, have been married for 13 years.
“He received no cash” from the property sales, he said. “It is not accurate to say that he has access to important media.”
Ana’s family has said the couple’s estrangement had been heated and that she feared him as she fought her husband’s claim that she deserved most of his assets. Weintraub denies this, stating that it was an amicable separation and that financial arrangements were being negotiated.
Ana Knezevich moved to Spain at the end of December. She disappeared five weeks later, after a man in a motorcycle helmet broke into her Madrid apartment building and disabled a security camera by spray-painting its lens. She later saw the man taking out a suitcase. Ana Knezevich is approximately 1.5 meters (4 feet 11 inches) tall and weighs 45 kilograms (100 pounds), according to her driver’s license.
Prosecutors say they have compelling evidence that Knezevich was the helmet man.
They say he flew to Turkey from Miami six days before Ana disappeared and then immediately traveled to his native Serbia. There she rented a Peugeot car.
On February 2, security video shows him 2,600 kilometers (1,600 miles) from Serbia at a Madrid hardware store using cash to buy duct tape and the same brand of spray paint that the man in the motorcycle helmet used in the security camera, prosecutors say.
Prosecutors allege that the man in a motorcycle helmet has the same height and eyebrows as Knezevich and that his mobile phone was connected to Facebook from Madrid.
The license plates stolen in Madrid at that time were detected by police license plate readers both near a motorcycle store where an identical helmet was purchased and on Ana Street on the night of her disappearance. Hours after the helmeted man left the apartment, a Peugeot identical to the one Knezevich rented and with stolen license plates was recorded passing through a toll near Madrid. The driver could not be seen because the windows were tinted.
The morning after his wife disappeared, prosecutors say Knezevich texted a Colombian woman he met on a dating app asking her to translate two English messages into “perfect Colombian” Spanish. After the woman returned them to Knezevich, two of Ana’s friends received those exact messages from her cell phone. The messages said that Ana was leaving with a man she had just met on the street, something her friends say she would never have done.
When Knezevich returned the Peugeot to the rental agency five weeks later, it had been driven 4,800 miles (7,700 kilometers), its windows were tinted, two identification stickers had been removed, and there was evidence that its license plate had been removed and then replaced. put back. .
Weintraub said Monday that his client still hopes that his wife will appear safe and sound “and that this nightmare” will end.
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