Local
Wone’s widow takes the stand
Trial begins with wife’s testimony, chilling 911 tape
Katherine Wone, wife of slain attorney Robert Wone, testified this week about her husband’s relationship with the three gay men charged in connection with his murder. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
The wife of slain attorney Robert Wone testified this week about her husband’s friendship with three gay men charged with obstructing a police investigation into his murder.
Katherine Wone, who became the government’s first witness Monday in a complex and long-awaited trial, said the couple gave money to a Virginia gay group that Joseph Price, one of the defendants, once chaired.
Price, 39, his domestic partner, Victor Zaborsky, 44, and the couple’s housemate, Dylan Ward, 39, are charged with obstruction of justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice and evidence tampering in connection with Wone’s August 2006 stabbing death in their Dupont Circle area townhouse. No one has been charged with the murder.
If convicted on all three counts, the defendants face a possible maximum sentence of 38 years in prison.
In testimony divided across two days, Katherine Wone said her husband, who became friends with Price during their days as students together at Virginia’s College of William & Mary, arranged to spend the night at the men’s house on Aug. 2, 2006.
She said he planned to work late at his job in D.C. as general counsel for Radio Free Asia and decided not to drive home that night to the couple’s house in Oakton, Va.
“Do you remember Robert saying he and Joe were good friends?” defense attorney Bernard Grimm asked Katherine Wone during cross-examination.
“Yes,” she said.
“Did you ever see a crossed word between Joe and Robert?” Grimm asked.
“No,” she replied.
In response to questions from Grimm, Katherine Wone said her husband was aware that Price was involved with Equality Virginia, a statewide gay civil rights group, and that he supported the cause of equal rights for “all people.”
She told of how she and Robert Wone accepted an invitation from Price to attend an Equality Virginia fundraising dinner in Richmond one year before the murder. And she confirmed that a photo of the Wones and Price that Grimm showed her on the witness stand was taken at the dinner.
The three defendants have said through their lawyers that an intruder killed Robert Wone after entering their house from a rear door while the men slept in their bedrooms. Each of their attorneys stressed during opening arguments that their clients’ friendship with Wone demonstrated they had no motive to harm him and that the government had failed to find a motive for the murder.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Glenn Kirschner, the lead prosecutor, noted in his opening argument that the men tampered with the crime scene and repeatedly misled police and homicide detectives investigating the murder. He said the defendants know — but refuse to disclose — the identity of the person or people who fatally stabbed Wone in the chest.
Among other things, Kirschner noted that paramedics and crime scene investigators found almost no blood on Wone’s body or the bed where he was found with three large stab wounds. There were no signs of a struggle, no defensive wounds on his arms, no signs of forced entry into the house, and nothing was disturbed or taken from the house, Kirschner said.
All of this, he said, was evidence of crime scene tampering and completely dispelled the defendants’ claim that an intruder killed Wone.
Defense attorneys representing the three gay men countered that the evidence doesn’t support any of the government’s allegations, including an assertion that more blood should have been found on the scene.
They planned to call an expert witness, a cardiac surgeon, who is expected to testify that the single stab wound piercing Wone’s heart would have killed him within five seconds, shutting down the heart’s ability to pump blood. A stopped heart, rather than a sinister plot postulated by the government, was the reason little or no blood was seen, defense attorneys said.
From the moment homicide detectives arrived at the house to investigate the murder, they became “marred and infatuated in a theory based on ignorance,” prompting them to suspect the men were involved in the murder, said Grimm, who is Price’s attorney.
“Why is a straight man coming to the house of a gay man,” Grimm quoted a detective as saying while interviewing the defendants.
Grimm and David Schertler, Ward’s attorney, said in their opening arguments that the three defendants’ sexual orientation and their three-way relationship played a role in shaping police and prosecutor assumptions that they, rather than an intruder, were involved in the murder.
Kirschner challenged that assertion, however, saying investigators have linked the men to a conspiracy to obstruct the investigation based on a vast array of crime scene findings.
“This case is not about sexual orientation,” he told D.C. Superior Court Judge Lynn Leibovitz, who is poised to decide the men’s fate after the defendants opted to forego a jury trial.
“This case is not about the personal relationship of these three. There is nothing negative that can be inferred due to the sexual orientation or lifestyle choices of these men,” he said.
But he noted that Price, Zaborsky and Ward “had powerful bonds among them,” which amounted to a “tight knit family” that is protecting its members from the harm that would come to them “if the truth came out.”
911 tape stirs courtroom
Katherine Wone’s calm testimony was offset Tuesday afternoon when prosecutors played a dramatic audio tape of Zaborsky’s 911 call reporting that Wone had been stabbed in his house.
On the recording, which lasts about 12 minutes, a near hysterical Zaborsky is heard making a desperate plea for help. He tells the 911 operator that a male friend visiting the house “is not conscious” after being stabbed.
When the operator asked him who stabbed the person, Zaborsky replied, “I don’t know who stabbed him. We don’t know how they got in. The person has one of our knives. … I’m afraid to go downstairs.”
The operator then urged Zaborsky to use a towel to stop the bleeding by pressing it firmly on the stab wound. He replied that his housemate, meaning Price, was already doing that in the guest bedroom where the stabbing victim was staying.
In a development that prosecutors have called highly significant, Zaborsky is heard on the tape asking the operator, “What time is it?” The operator, sounding surprised, repeated the question before responding, “11:54.”
One day earlier, in his opening argument, prosecutor Kirschner said that Zaborsky’s question about the time was among the indicators that he participated in a conspiracy to conceal from investigators what really happened during Wone’s brief stay at the men’s house.
Investigators believe Wone arrived at the house shortly after 10:30 p.m. Kirschner followed up on the chronology of the incident when he next called as witnesses William and Claudia Thomas, a married couple who live in the townhouse adjoining the defendants’ house at 1509 Swann St., N.W.
William Thomas testified that he heard a scream coming from the defendants’ house through a wall shared by the two houses on the night of the murder. He said he did not check the time when he heard the scream, but said he remembered hearing his wife watching the 11 p.m. news on Channel 7. His wife backed up that account during her own testimony.
Based on that account, police and prosecutors have said between 12 and 49 minutes elapsed from the time of the scream and the time Zaborsky called 911 at 11:49 p.m.
Investigators have said the scream could have marked the time Wone was stabbed. A delay of even 12 minutes in making the 911 call could have been used to clean the crime scene and hide or discard other evidence linked to the murder.
The Thomas’ testimony was followed by testimony from Jeff Baker, one of the first of the paramedics to arrive at the house in response to the 911 call.
Baker said the first of several highly unusual murder scene observations he made came during his encounter with Ward, who was standing at the top of the second floor staircase when Baker approach the room where Wone’s body was found. He noted that when he asked Ward what happened, Ward ignored him and retreated into his bedroom.
Upon entering the room where Wone was lying lifeless on a pull-out sofa bed, Baker said, he was startled at what he saw. Wone was lying “flat on his back” with three stab wounds to his chest with almost no blood on his body or on the bed, he said.
This was highly unusual for a stabbing, Baker said, based on his experience in responding to hundreds of stabbings during his 14 years as a paramedic.
He said Price was sitting on the bed next to Wone’s lifeless body. There was no towel on Wone’s wounds and Price’s hands had no signs of blood, which would be expected if he had been holding the towel on Wone’s chest.
Baker said he later observed a light streak of blood on Wone’s abdomen that appeared as if it had been “wiped.”
Kirschner said in his opening argument that investigators found the towel in the room, but it had only a small amount of blood on it. He noted that Price told police he found one of the knives from the men’s kitchen in the room where Wone was stabbed.
Authorities later reported that cotton fibers found on the knife indicated that blood had been taken from Wone’s wounds and wiped onto the knife with a towel to make it look like the murder weapon. Although fibers found on the knife matched that of a towel, no fibers were found that matched the shirt Wone wore and which had been pierced by the knife used to kill him, Kirschner said in his opening argument.
Police evidence experts and findings from an autopsy on Wone also showed the blood on the knife covered the entire blade, even though the depth of the wounds on Wone’s chest indicated that blood would not have covered the full length of the blade, Kirschner said.
Kirschner has said this was further evidence that the men tampered with the crime scene to mislead police. He noted that a cutlery set found in Ward’s bedroom had one knife missing. When investigators obtained a duplicate knife from the manufacturer, they found it matched the size and depth of Wone’s wounds better than the bloody knife found at the scene, further suggesting that someone other than an intruder and someone known to the defendants was responsible for the murder.
Defense attorneys disputed these assertions in their opening arguments, saying their own expert witnesses would testify that the cotton fibers on the knife could not be accurately linked to either the towel or Wone’s shirt. Instead, they said the fibers are found in the ambient air and on all objects and were meaningless as evidence in a stabbing.
What really happened, Schertler said in his opening argument, is that the defendants are telling the truth in saying they were not involved in the murder and that an intruder killed Robert Wone.
D.C. attorney Dale Edwin Sanders, who practices criminal law and is not associated with the case, said the part of the government’s case that appears the strongest is its assertion that no evidence exists to show an intruder entered the house to kill Wone. He noted that in cases based on circumstantial evidence, sometimes “missing” evidence becomes the key to the case.
“It’s largely a circumstantial case,” he said. “There’s no smoking gun, but the government has presented a neatly interwoven mosaic of 100 pieces of evidence that all fit together.”
Other observers at the trial said the defense was ready to discredit or downplay the government’s evidence with the aim of establishing enough doubt that Leibovitz would have to find the men not guilty.
Attorneys on both sides have predicted the trial would last about five weeks.
District of Columbia
Sinners and Saints bar vandalized in suspected anti-LGBTQ hate crime
Blade spoke with General Manager Blair Nixon after incident
On Thursday, shattered glass, broken doors, and homophobic slurs were discovered in the entryway of Adams Morgan queer bar Sinners and Saints (2309 18th St. N.W.) Images of the destruction were posted to the bar’s Instagram, and news of the break-in began to spread.
The Washington Blade sat down with one of the co-partners and general manager of Sinners and Saints, Blair Nixon, to discuss the break-in and the overwhelming response from the LGBTQ community.
“Our door was broken-so the glass was shattered,” Nixon told the Blade when describing the damage done to the space. “They wrote a slur on our wall, and unfortunately-we’re not sure to the extent that it was, but there’s a bunch of inventory missing from our liquor closet. It does seem like it was targeted because of what they wrote on the wall.”
Nixon, who has been with Washington’s only QTBIPOC (queer, trans, Black, Indigenous, and people of color) bar since its opening last August, explained that upon learning of the break-in, fear was his first reaction.
“It was really scary,” Nixon said. “To know that somebody was in our space, vandalizing it-it was very scary and honestly, devastating.”
He went on to say that if it weren’t for the restaurant above Sinners and Saints, La Grotta, they wouldn’t have known until hours later.
“We found out because of the restaurant upstairs that we’re partnered with,” he said. “The electricity to the entire building was turned off-including apartments and the restaurant above us. Whoever broke in went into the closet that’s outside of the building and turned the electricity off to the entire building. When the restaurant owners got there, they tried to figure out why there wasn’t any electricity. They went downstairs and saw the shattered glass, the door broken, and the slur on the wall.”
Once Sinners and Saints staff arrived to survey the damage, they posted the images to their Instagram and called the Metropolitan Police Department. Nixon was grateful for both MPD and the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs’s quick reaction.
“We were really happy with the response,” Nixon said. “The mayor’s office reached out relatively quickly, and I had a conversation with them, and the police came shortly afterwards, and they did a really good job. So we’re very appreciative of the response. They took a statement, they looked at the damage, took photos of everything, and made a report.”
“They actually sent, like, the entire department,” he added. “There were multiple police officers, multiple detectives, and the LGBTQ liaison came a little bit later. In general, I just really appreciated the response overall.”
The Blade obtained a copy of the filed police report, which described the break-in as a felony-more specifically, MPD considered it a second-degree burglary. MPD’s report also classified the break-in and subsequent graffiti as having “a hate bias or motivation” against sexual minorities who own and frequent the bar.
Unfortunately, there were no cameras on the premises at the time of the break-in, which MPD estimates happened sometime between 2-6 p.m., but Sinners and Saints were able to obtain footage from nearby businesses.
“We did have some camera footage from the hostel next door, and we submitted that to law enforcement,” he said. “We’re just going to let them do their investigation, and I don’t want to make any suppositions about what might have happened.”
When asked what he believed motivated the assailant(s), Nixon didn’t offer a definitive answer. He suggested it was likely someone hostile to LGBTQ businesses in Washington but assured the Blade that Sinners and Saints would not back down-and that the LGBTQ community stands firmly behind them.
“I don’t want to make any statements about what we think happened. We’re going to let the police do their job. But, as the only QTBIPOC bar in D.C., I think it’s important to note that we’re still here. We’re not going to close. We appreciate the support of our community, and I think that overall, it’s really important that we’re a safe space for the underserved and marginalized communities in D.C. Given that D.C. has, you know, one of the largest queer populations-but there aren’t very many spaces for the communities that we serve-we’re very proud to serve those communities. And we aren’t going to stop.”
Nixon had one critique for MPD, but was overall with their quick response.
“We hope that law enforcement would have a greater presence in Adams Morgan,” he said. “I think that, especially from talking to other establishment owners and bar owners, there’s definitely been some increased issues in Adams Morgan, and we hope that that doesn’t continue. We talked to the Mayor’s Office about it and to the police when they came-to have a greater presence in Adams Morgan.”
Since its opening, Nixon said the support from the QTBIPOC and broader LGBTQ community felt strong-but now, after the break-in, that connection has only grown stronger.
“We opened in August of last year, and we think that D.C. in general has really responded to our mission, and the community has really shown up for us-just like the same way that we’ve shown up for them.”
That community support for Sinners and Saints, Nixon said, extends past the diverse group of QTBIPOC people buying shots and tipping 20 percent nightly. Some of the city’s LGBTQ organizations showed up, offering to help. One of those community members who reached out owns a popular gay bar just up 18th Street.
“The response has been really strong, and we definitely appreciate the support. A few of the other LGBT bar owners in Adams Morgan actually stopped by in person. We really appreciated that Dave Perruzza from Pitchers came by, and just in general that the community has been rallying around us.”
On Thursday night, Sinners and Saints opened as planned and hosted their “Sapphic Sailor Moon” party. Despite the break-in, the LGBTQ community came out to support them.
“I was working-actually bartending,” Nixon said. “I wasn’t originally supposed to be working, but I thought it was important for all the partners to be there. So everyone that’s involved in Sinners and Saints’ leadership team came out. Obviously, we were dealing with the incident, but being there the entire night, we thought that the response from the community was really strong. We wanted to make sure that we posted on social media the fact that we were still open, because a lot of people were contacting us and asking if we were going to be continuing on, if we were going to close. We thought it was really important to make sure that we were there and still open and still available.”
That community, Nixon said, includes members of the LGBTQ population who are often overlooked-which makes the attack on a space intentionally dedicated to them-particularly trans people and people of color-even more painful.
“I think that DC in general, as one of the cities with the biggest queer populations, has adopted the LGBT community in general-and it’s great. However, the adoption of people of color and the overall QTBIPOC community, you know, our trans community, hasn’t been the same. It’s super important to us to make sure that that community is protected and that there are safe spaces for them, and that’s what our core mission is. We never want that to stop. The most important thing is that the safe space for those marginalized and underrepresented communities continues. And I would hope that the acceptance of the community that we serve continues-and is just as important as the acceptance of the LGBT community as a whole.”
If you have any information about the break in, please contact MPD at (202) 727-9099. Sinners and Saints has set up a GoFundMe page for repairs. It can be accessed here.
District of Columbia
Adams Morgan queer bar broken into and vandalized
Sinners and Saints targeted Thursday night
On Thursday night, Sinners and Saints, a popular queer bar in Adams Morgan and the only QTBIPOC (queer, trans, Black, Indigenous and people of color) bar in D.C., was broken into and vandalized with homophobic slurs, according to a recent Instagram post from the establishment.
“Last night, our bar — the only QTBIPOC bar in DC — was broken into and hate-crimed during DC Black Pride, a time meant for celebration, resilience, and joy — and on the eve of WorldPride 2025. We are heartbroken, but we are not broken,” the post read.
The statement was accompanied by a slideshow showing the damage: the front iron gate door and its glass counterpart shattered, glass strewn across the floor, and the word “FAGGOT” scrawled in black ink on the wall.
“This space exists to protect and celebrate queer and trans BIPOC communities, and this attack only strengthens our resolve,” the post continued. “We will NOT be silenced. We will NOT be intimidated. We will NOT back down.”
“To those who tried to harm us: hate fuels our defiance. To our community: we see you, we love you, and we will continue fighting for you. Sinners and Saints is resistance. We will rebuild. We will STAY OPEN. And we will keep our doors — and hearts — wide open for all who need refuge.”
They ended the message with a call to action: “Stand with us. Share this. Show up. We keep us safe.”
“What happened was truly disheartening, but we won’t be silenced,” co-owner Fazeel Ashraf told the Washington Blade. “QTBIPOC spaces are so important in this current political climate. I’d love to do a phone interview with one of my fellow partners.”
Despite the heartbreak surrounding the break-in and what Ashraf described as “a hate crime,” the LGBTQ community quickly rallied in the comments, offering support and assistance.
“Please let us know how we can help!” wrote Nik Battaglia. “I’m a handy queer with handy queer friends — I can fix shit, paint shit, and am happy to stand guard outside.”
Even national figures chimed in.
“RuPaul’s Drag Race” star Laganja Estranja commented, “Incredible response! I believe in you. Sending so much love and strength.”
The Blade reached out to the Metropolitan Police Department regarding the break-in but has not received a response.
To view the damage, and some of the LGBTQ community’s supportive statements, visit the Sinners and Saints’s Instagram page.
The Comings & Goings column is about sharing the professional successes of our community. We want to recognize those landing new jobs, new clients for their business, joining boards of organizations and other achievements. Please share your successes with us at [email protected].
The Comings & Goings column also invites LGBTQ college students to share their successes with us. If you have been elected to a student government position, gotten an exciting internship, or are graduating and beginning your career with a great job, let us know so we can share your success.
Congratulations to Raffi Freedman-Gurspan on being appointed Associate Director, Federal Funding & Infrastructure Office, at the Massachusetts Executive Office for Administration & Finance. Freedman-Gurspan will be returning to her hometown of Boston and joining Gov. Maura Healey’s Administration. Freedman-Gurspan served in both the Obama and Biden administrations as well as worked in LGBTQ and redistricting advocacy during her 11 years in D.C.
Freedman-Gurspan was the first openly transgender person on the White House staff when she worked for President Obama. She most recently served at the U.S. Department of Transportation in former Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s office, as Deputy Director of Public Engagement. Previously she worked with the National Redistricting Action Fund/The All On The Line Campaign, as Deputy States Director. She worked for the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) as Director of External Relations. In the Obama White House, she worked in the Office of Public Engagement, as Senior Associate Director. She was the White House Liaison to the LGBTQ community responsible for management of all public inquiries on matters regarding LGBTQ people, including recommending public responses to senior leadership, assisting in drafting administration talking points, and coordinating stakeholder engagement with the White House offices. She worked with the White House, Presidential Personnel Office (PPO), as Outreach and Recruitment Director.
Prior to that she was on the staff of Commonwealth of Massachusetts, House of Representatives Office of State Rep. Carl Sciortino, as legislative director, and worked for the City of Somerville, Health Department, Office of Commissions, Somerville, Mass., as LGBTQ Liaison.
Freedman-Gurspan served on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, the Presidentially Appointed Council; and as a member, and Board Member, Boston University, College of Arts and Sciences, Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program.
She earned her bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Norwegian, concentration in Nordic Studies, from St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minn.
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