Lorenzo Torture Trial Goes To Jury
Published: Nov 10, 2005
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TAMPA - -- Steven Lorenzo and Scott Schweickert teamed up for a "weekend of carnage," drugging, torturing and killing two men, a prosecutor told a federal jury Wednesday.
Transcripts of computer conversations between the two men before the killings "read like a horror novel," Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Porcelli said during his summation before the jury began deliberations Wednesday afternoon.
Jurors were sent home after two hours of deliberations and were to return to court this morning to consider whether to convict Lorenzo on nine counts of giving the men the drug gamma-hydroxybutyrate, or GHB, with the intent of committing crimes of violence and one count of conspiracy with Schweickert.
Each count carries a maximum penalty of 20 years.
"It's not a conspiracy, it's a fantasy," said defense attorney Donald Harrison, who told jurors the prosecution was selectively using evidence to distort Lorenzo's active sexual fantasy life to make it seem he is guilty of crimes.
"You know the old saying," he said. "Different strokes for different folks. These people are different. That doesn't make him bad, doesn't make him a murderer, doesn't make him a sadist. Just makes him different."
Both sides agree that Lorenzo was part of a sadomasochistic subculture in which self-proclaimed dominant and submissive men find one another online and in bars and get together for sessions of sex, bondage and pain.
The prosecution alleges that Lorenzo also lured unsuspecting men to his house and drugged them before dominating them.
According to the government, Lorenzo met Schweickert online and the two developed and carried out a plan to make their fantasies reality, killing Jason Galehouse and Michael Wachholtz on Dec. 20 and 21, 2003.
Harrison argued that Lorenzo had nothing to do with Galehouse and Wachholtz. He presented a witness who said he saw Wachholtz at the Green Iguana on Dec. 24, 2003, four days after when Lorenzo is accused of killing him.
He also disputed that pictures on Lorenzo's computer show Wachholtz's body. The photos were taken about 5 a.m. Dec. 21, 2003. Wachholtz's mother has testified she has no doubt it is her son.
Harrison also questioned the reliability of DNA evidence that identified a large pool of blood found in dirt beneath Lorenzo's garage floor as coming from Galehouse.
Porcelli read extensively from printed transcripts of instant message chats investigators found in Lorenzo's home.
He quoted Lorenzo as saying, "I'm extreme, calculating and love it. ... Taking a man and forcing to do what is totally humiliating is power to me."
On Oct. 21, 2003, Porcelli noted, they talked about "taking someone just before Christmas." This, the prosecutor said, would "not only inflict pain on their victims, but [would] inflict pain on their families."
Then, on Dec. 29, eight days after Wachholtz was killed, the two men had their last instant message chat.
According to the prosecution, the two talked about Wachholtz, whose body was found in the back of his Jeep. The pair discussed whether fingerprints could be found in the vehicle, Porcelli said.
"I just wanted to be sure that model has cloth seats so that nothing was able to be detected," Schweickert wrote.
Lorenzo: "Oh. Cloth does that?"
Schweickert: "Prints."
Lorenzo: "Yup. Guess cloth would make it tougher to leave behind on."
Later in the conversation, Porcelli said, they talked about a missing-person flier a friend of Wachholtz's had left at the Suncoast Resort in St. Petersburg.
"You might want to check out the piano at the Sun Coast next time you are down that way," Schweickert wrote. "Interesting flyer on the bar there."
Schweickert's trial is scheduled to begin Dec. 12.
