Conviction Reached In Brighton Beach Murder Case
Mikhail Chernyaev, 49, was convicted yesterday of murdering his ex-girlfriend’s lover in her Brighton Beach home while she was at work in 2012, according to Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson.
Chernyaev stabbed, suffocated, and strangled Charles Butler, and then went to great lengths to cover his tracks, according to the DA. Chernyaev used Butler’s cell phone’s memory card to text his ex, Anna Lioznov, pretending to be Butler, according to Lioznoz’s testimony.
“I have to leave for 3 days, right now,” read one of the texts. “Just forget about me.”
Chernyaev then took Butler’s body on a trip to his Upper East Side residence before taking him upstate to dump the body over a cliff near Port Jervis. Butler’s body, partially decayed and eaten by animals, was found in a ditch a month after the murder.
The body was identified as Butler using a sketch constructed from the skeleton, a single fingerprint, and DNA analysis, according to the DA.
“A man senselessly lost his life out of sheer jealousy, leaving behind two grieving daughters and a young son,” said DA Ken Thompson. “I would like to commend the dedicated prosecutors, police officers and forensic experts who solved this complicated case and helped hold a calculated killer accountable.”
Chernyaev confessed to the murder to NYPD detective Constantine Papadopoulos. He told Papadopoulos, and wrote in a statement, that there was a demon inside of him.
Chernyaev turned down a plea deal in May 2015, and demanded the case be retried in English, sending Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Neil Firetog into a fury in which he pounded his desk and yelled at Chernyaev to “shut up.”
Chernyaev faces 25 years to life in prison, according to the DA.
