Nov 07, 2008  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO JR  | COMMENTS     

A prominent Asian-American attorney who was found stabbed to death in the Dupont Circle home of three gay men in August 2006 appears to have been restrained, drugged and sexually assaulted before someone killed him, according to a D.C. police affidavit.

Law enforcement officials in Dade County, Fla., used the affidavit to obtain a warrant for the Oct. 29 arrest of Dylan Ward, one of the three residents of the townhouse where Robert Wone, 32, was
killed.

At the request of D.C. police, Florida authorities charged Ward with obstruction of justice in connection with the Wone murder.

“The evidence demonstrates that Robert Wone was restrained, incapacitated, sexually assaulted, and murdered inside 1509 Swann Street, N.W.,” the affidavit says.

It says investigators have obtained “overwhelming evidence” that Ward, 38, and the other two men living in the Swann Street house — attorney and gay activist Joseph Price and his domestic partner, Victor Zaborsky — engaged in obstruction of justice to impede the investigation into the murder.

Ward’s lawyer told Channel 7 news that Ward is innocent and will vigorously fight the charge in court.

All three men have told police they were asleep in their respective bedrooms at the time Wone was attacked. Although the men said through their attorneys that they did not see what happened, they informed police that they believe an unidentified intruder killed Wone after entering the house from a rear door.

In statements released in the past by their attorneys, Ward, Price and Zaborsky said they also have fully cooperated with the police investigation. They have refused all requests for interviews with the media.

Ward, who had been living in a Miami suburb, was held in custody pending his extradition to Washington.

According to the 14-page affidavit, the three men allegedly hindered the investigation by “orchestrating the crime scene, planting evidence, delaying the reporting of the murder to authorities and lying to the police about the true circumstances of the murder.”

Neither D.C. police nor the office of the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, which is prosecuting Ward, would say why they did not simultaneously bring obstruction of justice charges against Price and Zaborsky, or why they have not charged anyone for Wone’s murder.

A spokesperson for the Wash-ington law firm Arent Fox, where Price has practiced law as a partner, said Price has taken a leave of absence from the firm effective Oct. 31, the day authorities released the affidavit. The spokesperson, Steven Harras, said Price decided to take the leave “to address these personal matters.”

Harras declined to provide additional information, including when Price might return to the firm.
A spokesperson for the Inter-national Dairy Foods Association, where Zaborsky served as assistant director of marketing and communications, said Zaborsky has not worked at the association since at least February.

The spokesperson, Peggy Armstrong, said she did not know where Zaborsky is currently employed.

Police: Sexual assault evidence found at scene

The affidavit provides an account of how traces of Wone’s semen were found on his body, including inside his rectum, and how some form of sexual penetration could have taken place while he was incapacitated.

It tells of police finding a large collection of S&M equipment in the house and of numerous photographs found on Price’s computer of Ward and Price engaging in sex with one another while using the equipment. It says one or more of these devices could have provided the means through which semen was found inside Wone’s rectum.

The affidavit also says forensic evidence indicates the large kitchen knife found on a nightstand in the room where Wone’s body was found does not appear to be the murder weapon. It says forensic tests indicate someone smeared blood from Wone’s body on the knife with a towel because fibers from the towel were intermixed with the blood.

Although a shirt Wone was wearing had cuts in places corresponding to the knife wounds on his chest and abdomen, no fibers from the shirt were found on the bloody knife, the affidavit says.
The document says it would be highly unlikely that no shirt fibers would be found on the blade of a knife used to stab someone through their shirt.

The affidavit says blood was found along the entire length of the knife, even though the depth of Wone’s stab wounds indicate that only the lower part of the knife should have been stained with blood.

It says authorities believe the actual murder weapon came from a three-knife cutlery set found in Ward’s bedroom, which was missing one knife. The affidavit says investigators never found the missing knife, but they ordered ...