Weber agrees to serve 20 years for manslaughter
A Philipstown man charged with murder pleaded guilty in Putnam County Court on Tuesday (Aug. 24) to manslaughter in the death of his father, whose body was found by firefighters inside a mobile home destroyed by fire in 2019.
Louis Weber III, 21, a 2018 Haldane graduate, pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in exchange for a 20-year prison sentence and five years of post-release supervision. Weber also agreed to a three-to-nine-year sentence for third-degree arson, to be served concurrently. His sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 26 before Judge Joseph Spofford.
Weber responded “yes” when prosecutor Larry Glasser of the Putnam County District Attorney’s Office asked if he was pleading guilty to repeatedly striking his father with a hammer before setting fire to the mobile home.
His plea covers a section of New York’s first-degree manslaughter statute in which a person is guilty when “with intent to cause serious physical injury to another person, he causes the death of such person or of a third person.” The maximum sentence for first-degree manslaughter is 25 years.
The body of Louis Weber Jr., 72, was found in the remains of his home at the Post Road Mobile Home Park on Nov. 4, 2019, after it was destroyed by an early-morning fire. Weber was a veteran of the Marine Corps and a retired financial adviser.
The younger Weber was arrested on Aug. 23, 2020, and charged with second-degree murder, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison, and two other felonies: third-degree arson and tampering with physical evidence. He pleaded not guilty on Sept. 11 and has been held since then at the Putnam County Jail.
Months earlier, in February 2019, Weber had been charged with three hate crimes by police investigating a swastika and anti-Semitic slur that had been the painted inside a home under construction in Nelsonville. In that case, he was adjudicated a youthful offender, so the outcome is sealed.
