ABOVE: Steven Lorenzo. Screenshot via News Channel 8/YouTube.
TAMPA | A man accused of brutally murdering two gay men in 2003, a case which resulted in widespread fear for Tampa Bay’s LGBTQ community at the time, is seeking to change his plea to guilty and be sentenced to death.
Steven Lorenzo, 63, was convicted of drugging and raping nine men in 2005, among them 26-year-olds Jason Galehouse and Michael Wachholtz. He is currently serving a 200-year federal prison sentence for his crimes.
Scott Schweickert, his co-defendant, confessed to helping lure the two men to Lorenzo’s Seminole Heights home in 2003 from a now-defunct gay bar. He was sentenced to life in prison in 2016 for confessing to their murders but avoided the death penalty for testifying against Lorenzo in prosecutors’ efforts to convict him.
“Although Wachholtz’s body was later found wrapped in a sheet in the back of his SUV, Galehouse’s remains were never recovered,” Watermark reported at the time. Schweickert confessed that the men dismembered his body, disposing of his remains in trash receptacles throughout the city.
Lorenzo has avoided trial in the years since, utilizing delay tactics which have resulted in little movement on the case. Last year he offered to plead no contest to the murder charges in order to avoid the death penalty, a request prosecutors declined.
Things changed drastically Dec. 2 when Lorenzo represented himself in a Tampa courthouse. The hearing followed a 16-page letter he wrote to the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit Court of Hillsborough County.
“Lorenzo expressed his wish to withdraw his not-guilty pleas to charges that he murdered Jason Galehouse and Michael Wachholtz in December 2003,” the Tampa Bay Times reported. He indicated he wanted to plead guilty and be sentenced to death without a right to appeal.
“Regardless of whether or not there would have been a trial … the end results will prove to be identical,” Lorenzo wrote in his letter. “Simply because the defendant has no intention of taking the witness stand under oath or at a trial. Therefore the state’s case against the defendant would have gone unchallenged anyway.”
According to News Channel 8, Assistant State Attorney Darrell Dirks said that the “State’s position is that even if the Defendant requests that the death penalty be imposed, the Court must conduct a separate penalty proceeding, with or without a jury, to evaluate alleged aggravating factors and mitigating factors, including any legally required comprehensive presentence reports by the Department of Correction and not a foregone conclusion.”
Watch more below via News Chanel 8:
Prosecutors also noted that they would allow the plea so long as Lorenzo made his decision “knowingly and intelligently.” Judge Christopher Sabella questioned Lorenzo on the matter and more Dec. 2.
“The judge explained to Lorenzo that he couldn’t just sentence him to death,” the Tampa Bay Times explained. “He said there is a legal process that still has to be followed, including the presentation of evidence of the aggravating factors – circumstances that qualify capital punishment – and mitigating circumstances – facts that would weigh against the death penalty.”
**Editor’s Note, Updated 12/06/22:
Lorenzo’s guilty plea was accepted by a judge Dec. 6. His sentencing is currently scheduled for February.
