GUILTY CA - Micki Kanesaki, 52, murdered aboard cruise ship off Italy, 25 May 2006

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http://centurylink.net/news/read.ph...ass&action=2&lang=en&_LT=UNLC_NKNWU00L2_UNEWS

WESLEY CHAPEL, Fla. (AP) — A California man has been arrested in southwest Florida on an outstanding murder warrant in the death of his ex-wife, who went overboard from an Italian cruise ship seven years ago.

Lonnie Kocontes was taken into custody Friday night by federal marshals and booked into the Pasco County Jail, authorities said.

His ex-wife, Micki Kanesaki, plunged into the Mediterranean on May 26, 2006, off the Island Escape, which was sailing between Sicily and Naples, according to the FBI. Her body washed ashore the next day in Calabria in southwest Italy.

More at link.....
 
This is reminiscent of the Natalie Woods case. Very interesting!
 
Former O.C. attorney suspected of murdering ex-wife

http://www.ocregister.com/news/county-496189-kanesaki-orange.html

SANTA ANA – Nearly seven years after the body of former Orange County paralegal Micki Kanesaki was found in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the southwest coast of Italy, her former husband was arrested Friday on suspicion of special circumstances murder for financial gain

Lonnie Loren Kocontes, 55, was arrested by U.S. Marshals along with deputies from the Pinellas County Sheriff's Department in his current hometown, Safety Harbor, Fla., according to a statement from the Orange County District Attorney's Office, which said it filed the murder charges Wednesday..........

Officials said they suspect that Kocentes strangled Kanesaki and threw her body overboard either late May 25 or early May 26.

Authorities said the FBI began investigating Kanesaki's death and monitored her assets, including the couple's joint bank accounts and the sales from their home, which were inherited by Kocentes.

Kocontes is accused of attempting to move more than $1 million into accounts formed with his new wife in 2008, which prompted the United States Attorney's Office (USAO) to seize the funds because of possible illegal activity, officials said.

Extradition proceedings will occur at an undetermined date, officials said.

More at link......
 
Judge OKs Calif. Prosecution in Cruise Ship Death

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/judge-oks-calif-prosecution-cruise-ship-death-19286771

Authorities in California can prosecute a man charged with strangling his ex-wife and tossing her from a cruise ship in Italy, a judge ruled.

Superior Court Judge William Evans ruled Wednesday that California law doesn't limit prosecutors to handling only cases in the state, the Orange County Register reported (http://bit.ly/15jUxFA)...........

Lonnie Kocontes, 55, of Safety Harbor, Fla., was arrested in February. .........
He remained jailed and could face life in prison without possibility of parole if convicted.

More at link......
 
Reader said:
Former O.C. attorney suspected of murdering ex-wife

http://www.ocregister.com/news/county-496189-kanesaki-orange.html

SANTA ANA – Nearly seven years after the body of former Orange County paralegal Micki Kanesaki was found in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the southwest coast of Italy, her former husband was arrested Friday on suspicion of special circumstances murder for financial gain

Lonnie Loren Kocontes, 55, was arrested by U.S. Marshals along with deputies from the Pinellas County Sheriff's Department in his current hometown, Safety Harbor, Fla., according to a statement from the Orange County District Attorney's Office, which said it filed the murder charges Wednesday..........

Officials said they suspect that Kocentes strangled Kanesaki and threw her body overboard either late May 25 or early May 26.

Authorities said the FBI began investigating Kanesaki's death and monitored her assets, including the couple's joint bank accounts and the sales from their home, which were inherited by Kocentes.

Kocontes is accused of attempting to move more than $1 million into accounts formed with his new wife in 2008, which prompted the United States Attorney's Office (USAO) to seize the funds because of possible illegal activity, officials said.

Extradition proceedings will occur at an undetermined date, officials said.

More at link......
Click to expand...

Rather ironic that he chose a place named 'Safety Harbor' to make his home, especially considering that his ex wife was thrown into the sea..
 
http://abc7.com/news/mission-viejo-...ed-second-ex-wife-tried-to-kill-third/723639/

A former Mission Viejo attorney awaiting trial for allegedly strangling his second ex-wife and tossing her overboard during a Mediterranean cruise allegedly tried to hire two inmates to kill his third ex-wife. His third ex-wife, identified only as Jane Doe, is a witness in his upcoming murder trial...

Prosecutors accuse Kocontes of soliciting two inmates to try to get Jane Doe to sign a letter that he drafted. The letter allegedly stated that she lied to the Orange County grand jury in 2013...

"He was offering them a sum of money, a different sum of money for each, but several thousand dollars for the signing of the letter and a lot more than that if they were to make her disappear," Price said.
Click to expand...
 
May 2015:

While in the Orange County jail last year awaiting trial, Kocontes is accused of drafting a letter for his third wife to sign that stated her testimony to the federal grand jury in 2006 was truthful and that her testimony to the Orange County grand jury in 2013 was a lie. Prosecutors said Kocontes then plotted to pay two fellow inmates to make the woman personally sign the letter and then murder her...

In April 2014, one of the inmates, through his attorney, reported the crime to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.

In additional to the murder charge, Kocontes now faces new charges, including felony solicitation to commit murder and solicitation to bribe a witness, which could bring an additional 11 years in prison, prosecutors said. His murder trial is pending in Orange County Superior Court.
Click to expand...

http://m.ocregister.com/articles/murder-661385-kocontes-orange.html
 
Kocontes was the beneficiary on Kanesaki’s estate and gained more than $1 million from the sale of her home and bank accounts, prosecutors allege.

In 2008, Kocontes tried to move that money among his bank accounts with his fourth wife, triggering an FBI investigation.

The probe eventually led to the murder charge against Kocontes. He was arrested in Florida in February 2013.
Click to expand...

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/...wifes-killing-cruise-ship-20150512-story.html

Wait, a fourth wife? :what: And she is still on his side, presumably? Or is there a fifth wife waiting to come out of the woodwork too?
 
Ex-California attorney sentenced for killing wife on cruise
  • Sep 18, 2020 Updated 35 min ago
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A former Southern California lawyer was sentenced Friday to life without the possibility of parole for strangling his ex-wife and throwing her body off a cruise ship in the Mediterranean in 2006.

Snip

Kocontes “almost got away with murder," Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement after the sentencing.

“Except for the fact that he strangled her to death before he threw her body overboard. Because she died before she hit the water her lungs were filled with air, not water. So she floated. And by a miracle, her body was discovered. That miscalculation allowed us to convict him of murder," Spitzer said.

More at link.
 
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