Local

Man charged in wife’s murder threatened male lover

Husband of Georgetown socialite claimed to be Iraqi general

Published

14 years ago

August 25, 2011

A 47-year-old man accused of threatening to kill his boyfriend of five years in 2004 was charged last week with second-degree murder in the death of his 91-year-old wife, whose marriage he described as a relationship of “convenience.”

D.C. police on Aug. 16 arrested Albrecht Gero Muth for the death of his wife of 21 years, retired journalist and Georgetown socialite Viola Drath.

Police said Drath was found dead on Aug. 12 in the bathroom of her house at 3216 Q St., N.W. in Georgetown. The D.C. Medical Examiner’s office said it determined through an autopsy that the cause of death was strangulation and blunt force injuries.

The Washington Post reported last week that Muth was well known to many in Washington’s political establishment, including journalists and federal government officials, as a colorful figure who claimed to be a brigadier general in the Iraqi army.

Officials with the Iraqi embassy in Washington said Muth had no association whatsoever with the Iraqi army or with the government of Iraq, saying they were dismayed that Muth – who often appeared in public wearing an Iraqi military uniform – was falsely making such claims.

The Post also reported that Muth told the Post that he was romantically involved with D.C. area resident Donald Davis beginning around 2002, when he became estranged from his wife and sought to move in with Davis.

Davis told the Post his relationship with Muth became strained around 2004 and he asked Muth to move out of his apartment. Muth responded by threatening to “have me killed and I should be careful when I get into my car,” the Post quoted Davis as saying.

Court records show that Davis obtained a protective stay away order against Muth that year in response to Muth’s alleged threats against him.

According to a four-page police affidavit in support of Muth’s arrest for his wife’s murder, there were no signs of a forced entry into Drath’s upscale Georgetown house. The affidavit says detectives working on the case discovered from court records that Drath had filed domestic violence charges against her husband on several occasions since 1992.

“On Jan. 12, 2008, the defendant was arrested and charged with assault with a dangerous weapon arising out of an incident in which it was alleged that he had assaulted the decedent with a wooden chair,” the affidavit says. “However, the case was dismissed when the victim declined to go forward with the case.”

The Post reported that Muth confirmed he had a five-year romantic relationship with Davis and moved into Davis’s D.C. apartment in 2002 after becoming estranged from Drath.

The affidavit says Muth denies he killed his wife and insists an intruder committed the murder, even though he acknowledges he was home around the time police believe Drath died and did not hear signs of a struggle or break-in.

He told police he slept in the basement of the house during the night his wife was killed, while she slept in an upstairs bedroom, because she didn’t like air conditioning, the affidavit says. It says Muth told police he chose to sleep in the basement, where it was cooler.

Muth told the Post that the protective orders obtained by his wife and by Davis alleging domestic violence or threats were unjustified. He said his wife obtained at least one of her protective orders against him because she was upset that he moved in with Davis, the Post reported. He said Davis filed his protective order against him out of anger that Muth moved out of Davis’s apartment and returned to his wife’s house, according to the Post.

The police affidavit says detectives interviewing Muth shortly before his arrest noticed he had scratches on his forehead that appeared to have been inflicted by someone else in a struggle. It says police obtained a search warrant to take DNA samples from Muth, with the intent of comparing them with traces of someone else’s DNA found on his wife’s body.

The affidavit also says a witness who knew Muth and Drath told police that Muth presented Drath’s family members with a letter immediately after Drath’s death that Muth claimed his wife wrote and signed. The witness told police the letter called on the family members to pay Muth $150,000 from Drath’s estate “if something were to happen” to Drath.

The letter called on the family to provide Muth with an additional $50,000 if her liquid assets exceeded $600,000.

“Your affiant asked Witness 1 if the signature on the letter appeared to be genuine,” the affidavit says. “W-1, who is well acquainted with the decedent’s signature, indicated that it was not the decedent’s signature,” the affidavit says.

Muth told homicide detectives working on the case that he had no formal job during most of the years he and Drath were married and that Drath had been giving him a monthly “allowance” of $2,000 until she reduced it recently to $1,800.

“Detectives asked the defendant about the significant age difference (some forty-four years) between him and the 91-year-old decedent,” says the affidavit. “He said that the marriage was a ‘marriage of convenience,’” the affidavit says.

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Virginia

Gay Va. State Sen. Ebbin resigns for role in Spanberger administration

Veteran lawmaker will step down in February

Published

17 hours ago

January 8, 2026

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

Virginia State Sen. Adam Ebbin will step down effective Feb. 18. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael K. Lavers)

Alexandria Democrat Adam Ebbin, who has served as an openly gay member of the Virginia Legislature since 2004, announced on Jan. 7 that he is resigning from his seat in the State Senate to take a job in the administration of Gov.-Elect Abigail Spanberger.

Since 2012, Ebbin has been a member of the Virginia Senate for the 39^th District representing parts of Alexandria, Arlington, and Fairfax counties. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Alexandria from 2004 to 2012, becoming the state’s first out gay lawmaker.

His announcement says he submitted his resignation from his Senate position effective Feb. 18 to join the Spanberger administration as a senior adviser at the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority.

“I’m grateful to have the benefit of Senator Ebbin’s policy expertise continuing to serve the people of Virginia, and I look forward to working with him to prioritize public safety and public health,” Spanberger said in Ebbin’s announcement statement.

She was referring to the lead role Ebbin has played in the Virginia Legislature’s approval in 2020 of legislation decriminalizing marijuana and the subsequent approval in 2021of a bill legalizing recreational use and possession of marijuana for adults 21 years of age and older. But the Virginia Legislature has yet to pass legislation facilitating the retail sale of marijuana for recreational use and limits sales to purchases at licensed medical marijuana dispensaries.

“I share Governor-elect Spanberger’s goal that adults 21 and over who choose to use cannabis, and those who use it for medical treatment, have access to a well-tested, accurately labeled product, free from contamination,” Ebbin said in his statement. “2026 is the year we will move cannabis sales off the street corner and behind the age-verified counter,” he said.

Maryland

Steny Hoyer, the longest-serving House Democrat, to retire from Congress

Md. congressman served for years in party leadership

Published

19 hours ago

January 8, 2026

Baltimore Banner

At 86, Steny Hoyer is the latest in a generation of senior-most leaders stepping aside, making way for a new era of lawmakers eager to take on governing. (Photo by KT Kanazawich for the Baltimore Banner)

By ASSOCIATED PRESS and LISA MASCARO | Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the longest-serving Democrat in Congress and once a rival to become House speaker, will announce Thursday he is set to retire at the end of his term.

Hoyer, who served for years in party leadership and helped steer Democrats through some of their most significant legislative victories, is set to deliver a House floor speech about his decision, according to a person familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to discuss it.

“Tune in,” Hoyer said on social media. He confirmed his retirement plans in an interview with the Washington Post.

The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.

District of Columbia

Kennedy Center renaming triggers backlash

Artists who cancel shows threatened; calls for funding boycott grow

Published

2 days ago

January 7, 2026

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

Richard Grenell, president of the Kennedy Center, threatened to sue a performer who canceled a holiday show. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Efforts to rename the Kennedy Center to add President Trump’s name to the D.C. arts institution continue to spark backlash.

A new petition from Qommittee , a national network of drag artists and allies led by survivors of hate crimes, calls on Kennedy Center donors to suspend funding to the center until “artistic independence is restored, and to redirect support to banned or censored artists.”

“While Trump won’t back down, the donors who contribute nearly $100 million annually to the Kennedy Center can afford to take a stand,” the petition reads. “Money talks. When donors fund censorship, they don’t just harm one institution – they tell marginalized communities their stories don’t deserve to be told.”

The petition can be found here.

Meanwhile, a decision by several prominent musicians and jazz performers to cancel their shows at the recently renamed Trump-Kennedy Center in D.C. planned for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve has drawn the ire of the Center’s president, Richard Grenell.

Grenell, a gay supporter of President Donald Trump who served as U.S. ambassador to Germany during Trump’s first term as president, was named Kennedy Center president last year by its board of directors that had been appointed by Trump.

Last month the board voted to change the official name of the center from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts to the Donald J. Trump And The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts. The revised name has been installed on the outside wall of the center’s building but is not official because any name change would require congressional action.

According to a report by the New York Times, Grenell informed jazz musician Chuck Redd, who cancelled a 2025 Christmas Eve concert that he has hosted at the Kennedy Center for nearly 20 years in response to the name change, that Grenell planned to arrange for the center to file a lawsuit against him for the cancellation.

“Your decision to withdraw at the last moment — explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure — is classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit arts institution,” the Times quoted Grenell as saying in a letter to Redd.

“This is your official notice that we will seek $1 million in damages from you for this political stunt,” the Times quoted Grenell’s letter as saying.

A spokesperson for the Trump-Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to an inquiry from the Washington Blade asking if the center still planned to file that lawsuit and whether it planned to file suits against some of the other musicians who recently cancelled their performances following the name change.

In a follow-up story published on Dec. 29, the New York Times reported that a prominent jazz ensemble and a New York dance company had canceled performances scheduled to take place on New Year’s Eve at the Kennedy Center.

The Times reported the jazz ensemble called The Cookers did not give a reason for the cancellation in a statement it released, but its drummer, Billy Hart, told the Times the center’s name change “evidently” played a role in the decision to cancel the performance.

Grenell released a statement on Dec. 29 calling these and other performers who cancelled their shows “far left political activists” who he said had been booked by the Kennedy Center’s previous leadership.

“Boycotting the arts to show you support the arts is a form of derangement syndrome,” the Times quoted him as saying in his statement.