Prosecutor says case about ‘greed’ and ‘revenge’
For most of Louis Weber’s court appearances over the last year, the rows of wooden benches inside the Putnam County courtroom in Carmel were largely empty.
Weber
Not so on Tuesday (Nov. 9), when Judge Joseph Spofford sentenced the 21-year-old Philipstown man to 20 years in prison for beating his father, Louis Weber III, to death with a hammer two years ago and setting fire to the elder Weber’s mobile home on Route 9. The younger Weber pleaded guilty in August.
Nearly 40 people filled the courtroom to hear the judge pass sentence, which the prosecution and defense had agreed upon in a plea deal. It will be followed by five years of supervised release.
The sentencing ended an ordeal that began on Nov. 4, 2019, when Louis Weber III’s remains were found in the wreckage of his home at the Post Road Mobile Home Park, just south of Route 301.
“This case was about greed and it was about revenge,” said Larry Glasser, Putnam’s first assistant district attorney.
Glasser said the younger Weber stole $4,000 from a box containing $18,000 at his father’s home and was on a three-day, cocaine-fueled bender in the days leading up the attack.
Weber accused his father of “stockpiling money” meant for child support, said Glasser, and at 2 a.m. went to “confront him.” Weber repeatedly hit his father with a hammer as he slept on a couch and then poured gasoline over the body and started the fire that destroyed the home, said Glasser.
Weber’s attorney had said his client grew up in a home marred by abuse; Weber said on Tuesday that “my father was not the only victim.”
The body of Louis Weber was found inside the remains of his mobile home after an early-morning fire on Nov. 4, 2019. (File photo)
Courtney Bozsik, the younger Weber’s sister, read a written statement describing her twin shocks: the death of her elderly father and then, nearly nine months later, the arrest of her adopted brother.
“I feel so sad for everything he threw away,” she said. “I will never understand how someone could be filled with so much toxic hate.”
Weber, a 2018 Haldane High School graduate, was arrested on Aug. 23, 2020, and charged with second-degree murder, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. He also was charged with arson and evidence tampering. On Aug. 24, he pleaded guilty to the reduced charge of first-degree manslaughter and arson. A three-to-nine-year sentence on the arson charge will run concurrent with the sentence for manslaughter.
The elder Weber was a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and a financial adviser for Ameriprise Financial before his retirement, according to an obituary posted by Clinton Funeral Home. One of his brothers, William Weber, in a statement read by Glasser, said his nephew had been considered a “gift from God” when adopted from Russia as an infant. Weber said his brother was “happy and excited to have a little boy.”
