Trial set to begin for NJ man accused of killing brother in quadruple homicide – NBC New York

Jury choice is scheduled to start Monday within the long-awaited trial of a New Jersey man accused of killing 4 kin in a homicide and arson plot after his youthful brother uncovered an online of monetary deceit.

Paul Caneiro, 59, will stand trial in a Monmouth County courtroom on greater than a dozen counts of homicide, aggravated arson, theft and different crimes linked to the killing of his youthful brother Keith Caneiro and his household on Nov. 20, 2018. If he’s convicted, he faces a most sentence of life with out the opportunity of parole on simply the homicide cost.

The trial is predicted to final a number of weeks.

Caneiro is accused of torching his brother’s house and his personal to create an “phantasm” that the whole Caneiro household was being focused, former Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher J. Gramiccioni has mentioned.

“This is without doubt one of the most brutal instances that I’ve seen in my expertise right here,” he mentioned at a information convention on the time.

In a press release, Caneiro’s protection crew mentioned their consumer maintains his innocence and has waited greater than seven years to “to have a full and honest trial the place the proof will probably be heard and evaluated in a court docket of regulation. Regardless of this prolonged course of, Mr. Caneiro stays affected person and resolute in addition to deeply grateful for the unwavering assist of his shut household and associates who proceed to face by him.”

Again-to-back blazes

The primary factor of the “phantasm” described by Gramiccioni was a predawn home hearth at Paul Caneiro’s house in Ocean Township, a rich coastal enclave south of New York Metropolis.

Responding to a report of smoke on the house at 5:01 a.m., emergency personnel discovered components of the home in flames. They found a crimson fuel can within the driveway, in response to an affidavit in assist of an arrest warrant, and a charred glove on the bottom.

Paul Caneiro, his spouse and two grownup daughters escaped the blaze and parked close by in a Porsche SUV, in response to the affidavit. His spouse informed authorities that she didn’t know of anybody who would wish to hurt her household.

Somewhat over seven hours later, authorities responded to a report of one other hearth, this time on the close by house of Caneiro’s brother and enterprise associate, Keith, 50. Officers discovered his physique within the entrance yard. He’d been shot as soon as within the again and 4 instances within the head, in response to one other affidavit.

The affidavit paints a horrific image of what firefighters present in Keith’s house. On the kitchen flooring, 11-year-old Jesse was discovered useless from a number of stab wounds. Keith’s 8-year-old daughter, Sophia, was on the touchdown of a staircase. She’d additionally been fatally stabbed. Autopsies cited smoke inhalation as a contributing issue of their deaths.

Keith’s spouse, Jennifer, 45, was on one other set of stairs. She’d been shot as soon as within the head and stabbed within the torso.

Paul was arrested three days afterward fees of aggravated arson in reference to the blaze at his own residence. He was charged with the killings shortly afterward and later indicted in reference to these crimes and others, together with the theft of $75,000 from his brother and sister-in-law, a replica of the indictment reveals.

At a information convention, Gramiccioni mentioned investigators had uncovered a possible motive for the killings: cash.

Monetary and household turmoil

A barrage of lawsuits filed in opposition to Paul within the years after his arrest supplied a window into the monetary and familial turmoil that preceded Nov. 20.

The brothers had lengthy been concerned in two firms collectively — a pest management enterprise that they took over in 2011 and an IT consulting agency that Keith began many years earlier than.

In accordance with a lawsuit Jennifer’s household filed in 2021, Paul was significantly injured in a automotive accident in 2012, which prompted a shift in his persona and demeanor. In accordance with the swimsuit, which accuses Paul of breach of fiduciary obligation and makes different allegations, Keith and Jennifer puzzled whether or not he’d developed an dependancy to ache remedy. (In a submitting, Paul neither admitted nor denied the declare.)

Within the months earlier than Nov. 20, Keith found “quite a few” cases of Paul stealing from their companies and from him personally, in response to the swimsuit. A evaluation of enterprise data discovered that he was misappropriating roughly $11,000 per thirty days for private use and claiming the costs as an insurance coverage reimbursement, in response to the swimsuit.

Keith started the method of eradicating Paul as a beneficiary from a household belief, in response to the swimsuit, and made it recognized that he deliberate to finish the enterprise partnership.

“Amongst different issues, he was making an attempt to promote the companies (which Paul objected to) and was on the lookout for job alternatives away from Paul,” the lawsuit says.

On Nov. 17, 2018 — three days earlier than the killings — Keith informed the youngsters’s grandfather Vlassis Karidis that Paul stole $90,000 that had been put aside for his youngsters’ school tuition, in response to the swimsuit. On the identical day, Keith informed Karidis that he was chopping off his brother’s $225,000 annual wage, the swimsuit says.

In a submitting, Paul wrote that he couldn’t touch upon the allegations of monetary crimes as a result of they had been related to his legal case.

Allegations of familial maneuvering continued after the killings. The lawsuit alleges that after Paul was arrested on the primary arson cost, the third and youngest Caneiro brother, Corey, acted “in live performance” with Paul to assist set up himself as trustee on Keith’s household belief — despite the fact that the swimsuit says Keith made it clear that he didn’t need Corey to serve in that position.

Shortly afterward, the swimsuit says, “Corey took secretive and unilateral management” of the life insurance coverage proceeds paid out to the belief. Lower than a 12 months later, the swimsuit says, Corey used these proceeds to purchase a $1.8 million house in one of many state’s wealthiest communities, Honest Haven.

A lawyer for Corey, who is called as a defendant within the lawsuit, didn’t reply to a request for remark. Corey denied the allegations in a submitting.

The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, is ongoing.

Authorized challenges

Because the legal case in opposition to Paul meandered via a sequence of pretrial court docket hearings, his attorneys sought to bar prosecutors from introducing proof that they imagine implicates him within the occasions of Nov. 20.

At a prolonged listening to in 2024, they argued {that a} highly effective and more and more frequent software used to determine DNA within the case hadn’t been correctly vetted. And in authorized filings final 12 months, they sought to exclude digital proof from trial that they mentioned police obtained with out the warrant they wanted. Monmouth County Decide Marc Lemieux rejected their claims in regards to the DNA software, STRmix, however agreed with the protection on one level — that authorities improperly seized Paul’s house safety system.

In a ruling in June, Lemieux wrote that the proof can be off-limits as a result of authorities didn’t first receive a warrant earlier than they searched Paul’s storage, the place he saved the system.

In accordance with the prosecution, proof obtained from the system helped set up Paul’s actions within the hours earlier than the killings.

He informed investigators that he believed he’d turned the system off the day earlier than as a result of it triggered his Wi-Fi to run gradual, in response to the affidavit. However when authorities examined the system, they discovered that it was hard-wired — not linked to a wi-fi community — and the cameras confirmed Paul strolling into the storage at 1:29 a.m., a few hours earlier than Keith’s neighbors described listening to what seemed like a sequence of gunshots, the affidavit says.

One of many cameras confirmed Paul strolling towards the system, in response to the affidavit. Then, at 1:30 a.m., the cameras stopped recording.

The choice blocking that proof was appealed to the state’s excessive court docket, which overruled the decrease courts final month and located that police had been justified in seizing the proof with out a warrant.

Arson refers back to the crime of beginning a fireplace on function with the intention to harm property.