Cleveland doctor returns to U.S. to face murder charge

NEW YORK—In Cleveland, Ohio, a doctor charged with the murder-by-poison of his wife will be arraigned Wednesday, almost four years after her death. Dr. Yazeed Essa, an international fugitive since 2005, was returned from Cyprus last week, and faces life in prison if convicted of aggravated murder.

On February 24, 2005, Essa’s wife, Rosemarie died after crashing her car, after taking what she believed was one of her calcium tablets. Tests later revealed that the bottle contained a mixture of calcium and cyanide pills. Her husband, an emergency room physician, was charged with her murder the following year.

But Dr. Essa had not only left Cleveland by that time, he had left the United States. According to press reports, less than one month after his wife’s death Essa turned over the bottle of calcium pills to authorities investigating the case. The next day, March 18, 2005, he traveled to Detroit and then to Toronto, taking a flight that ended up in Syria.

The defendant was finally arrested in 2006 during a customs check after a flight from Lebanon to Cyprus. For the next two years, Essa waged an aggressive extradition battle centered on the belief that Cleveland prosecutors would seek the death penalty if Cyprus would agree to extradition.

According to Bill Mason, Cuyahoga County’s District Attorney, the government of Cyprus and the United States have a treaty that forbids extradition if death is on the table. After Mason filed several sworn affidavits saying he would not seek death for Essa, the tide began to turn against the fugitive’s legal arguments on foreign soil. Cyprus agreed to extradite Essa, and although he could have appealed, he decided to give up the fight in Europe, to begin a new fight here at home.

Essa arrived back in Ohio on Friday January 9 and is represented by Mark Marein.

This case will be interesting to watch as it winds its way through the legal system. It reminds me in part of the 2006 Georgia case of defendant James Sullivan, covered live by In Session. Sullivan, charged with hiring a hit man to kill his socialite wife Lita Sullivan, also fled the U.S. to Thailand. Sullivan’s flight to foreign soil came into the prosecution’s case as a consciousness of guilt act by the defendant. That evidence made it extremely difficult for his defense attorneys to argue that Sullivan played no role in his wife’s murder. He was subsequently convicted.

–Jean Casarez, In Session correspondent