Convicted of killing wife’s ex-husband
A federal jury found a former Beacon couple guilty on Friday (Sept. 27) of killing the wife’s ex-husband, who disappeared in April 2020 after dropping off his two teenage daughters following a custody visit.
After a two-week federal trial in White Plains, Jamie Orsini, 38, and Nicholas Orsini, 36, were each found guilty of carjacking resulting in death and conspiracy to commit carjacking in the disappearance of Steven Kraft. The court has not set a date for sentencing.
Kraft, who lived in Marlboro, has not been seen since April 28, 2020, when he returned his daughters to their mother’s home on West Church Street.
More than three years later, on June 15, 2023, police arrested the Orsinis in Amsterdam, the city near Albany where the couple had moved. Each faces a maximum penalty of life in prison on the carjacking resulting in death charge and five years on the conspiracy charge.
“For more than four years, Kraft’s family has waited for justice,” said Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. “Their wait is now over.”
Kraft’s body has not been found, but prosecutors allege the couple began plotting his murder before he disappeared, buying items that could be used to dismember and burn a body. Police recreated their movements using GPS and cellphone data and surveillance video from public and private cameras.
Security footage and a store receipt from April 8, 2020, from the Home Depot on Route 9 in Fishkill showed that Jamie Orsini bought a 10-foot-by-100-foot tarp, duct tape and a Tyvek suit and boots, according to prosecutors. Video from the parking lot captured Nicholas Orsini helping load the supplies into the couple’s GMC Envoy.
That same day, according to the complaint, the pair drove to Newburgh to determine how to dispose of Kraft’s car. Data from their phones and video footage tracked the couple traveling from West Church Street over the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge to Newburgh. The next day, according to prosecutors, Nicholas Orsini visited the Walmart on Route 9 in Fishkill and purchased a “burner phone,” which can be activated without the user having to open an account using personal information.
Prosecutors said that Kraft, a former U.S. Marine who was 34 when he disappeared, had custody of his daughters from 4 to 7 p.m. on Tuesdays and every other weekend.
On the day he disappeared, Kraft picked up his daughters from his ex-wife’s home in Beacon at 4 p.m., drove them to a Sonic restaurant in the Town of Newburgh and then to his apartment in Marlboro, before returning them to Beacon at 7 p.m. Police said they used location data to confirm that Jamie and Nicholas Orsini followed him to the restaurant.
The next day, Kraft failed to show up to his job at a deli in Marlboro, and on May 4, investigators found his 1999 Camry abandoned at Third Street and Carpenter Avenue in the City of Newburgh.
One of the earliest pieces of evidence was surveillance footage showing Kraft’s car crossing the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge on April 28. Nicholas Orsini was accused of being the driver. He parked the car, walked a mile to a Sunoco station on Route 9W, discarded one of Kraft’s phones along the way (another was left in the car) and used the burner phone to call a taxi to take him back to Beacon.
In the days following Kraft’s disappearance, the Orsinis traveled “extensively” between Beacon and Amsterdam, where Nicholas Orsini’s family owns farmland, prosecutors said, before eventually moving there. Nicholas Orsini drove to Amsterdam the day after Kraft disappeared, according to court documents, stopping at the Walmart in the Town of Newburgh to buy a new burner phone.
That same day, Jamie Orsini sent a text to Kraft’s phone, asking about their children’s report cards “to create the impression that she did not know he was dead,” according to police and prosecutors.
Over the next few days, Nicholas Orsini searched Google using the term “is galvanized steel fireproof” and the couple rented space at a storage facility in Middletown, according to court documents.
Nicholas Orsini also bought from the Home Depot in Fishkill two 31-gallon galvanized steel trash cans, an angle grinder and ax, three bottles of charcoal lighter fluid, a flame lighter and 16 bundles of firewood, prosecutors said.
“These two murderous individuals allegedly deliberately took the life of another person and will now be held accountable for their actions,” said Steven Negrelli, acting superintendent for the state police, at the time of the couple’s arrest.
Dean Kraft, Steven’s father, who lives in Illinois, told the Poughkeepsie Journal in June 2023 that he was “flabbergasted” by the arrests. “I couldn’t believe two people could have that much hate for another person,” he said.
Kraft said that, since his son disappeared, the Orsinis had not responded to his phone calls or letters when he reached out to his granddaughters, then 15 and 13. He told the Journal he wanted his granddaughters to know “I’ve never forgotten them, and I’ll always love them.”
He added: “It’s long overdue, but I believe justice will prevail. I want justice for Steven.”
I was present at the trial of Nicholas and Jamie Orsini every day until the verdict was decided by a jury, which was supposed to be comprised of the defendants’ peers but instead was people with PhDs who were significantly older and not representative of the defendants’ ages or race.
Since The Current reports the facts, why not report on testimony that not one shred of DNA, blood or fibers from Steven Kraft was discovered after swabbing his vehicle, or that cadaver dogs searched in Beacon and Amsterdam [New York, where the couple lived] and found nothing despite the allegation they had burned a body in a Beacon backyard in broad daylight, over two days no less? Or that DNA from Nicholas Orsini, who allegedly drove Kraft’s car, was not found in the vehicle? How about a friend knowing to look for Kraft’s car in a high-crime area of Newburgh?
The “evidence” provided by the prosecution was all circumstantial, which apparently can be used to decide verdicts in carjacking resulting in murder trials even with no evidence of a carjacking or a body.
The defendants were not considered innocent until proven guilty; they never had a chance. They were held in detention for over a year before the trial started, away from their children who desperately needed them. Is this how our country treats “innocent” people?
Why don’t the police address the drug and violent crime problem in Newburgh and find out who had something to do with Kraft’s disappearance, instead of putting innocent people in jail?
The writer, who lives in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, is Nicholas Orsini’s sister.