May 14, 1996|By Kris Antonelli | Kris Antonelli,SUN STAFF
Two Baltimore brothers suspected in the slayings of two men at Loch Raven Reservoir last summer seemed to "savor their violence" and kept a video scrapbook of television news stories about the killings and other crimes, a federal prosector said yesterday in U.S. District Court.
FBI agents and police found a videotape of news stories about the slayings when they raided the Baltimore home of Michael Zenone, 27, and his brother, Anthony J. Zenone, 30. They also found the assault rifle used to kill Vincent B. Young at the secluded cove where he and Vernon A. Smith were found dead June 15.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul M. Rosenberg denied the brothers' request for bail during a hearing on federal charges that they robbed the Mercantile-Safe Deposit and Trust branch in White Marsh on April 12 and the First Virginia Bank branch in Towson two weeks later.
They also have been charged by city police with the Feb. 24 robbery of the Kenwood Bingo Hall. They have not been charged in the Loch Raven slayings, but Baltimore County police have said the Zenones are suspects and are continuing to investigate the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas M. DiBiagio told Judge Rosenberg about evidence in the local cases and in the bank robberies in asking that bail be denied. He said the brothers threatened to kill bank tellers if they called police and that Smith, the father of three boys, was "brutally beaten" with a barbell or a pipe.
"Based on the video scrapbook found in their house, they seemed to relish or savor their violence," DiBiagio said.
Also on the videotape found in the brothers' house in the 4400 block of Forest View Ave. were television news accounts of four Anne Arundel County robberies in which men wearing masks of former Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan held up three restaurants and a bank in 1993.
Nixon and Reagan masks were found in the Zenones' house -- along with a videotape of the movie, "Point Break," in which a gang of men wearing presidential masks rob banks, according to documents filed in federal court.
DiBiagio said indictments are expected this week in the robbery of a First National Bank of Maryland branch on College Parkway in Arnold in August 1993.
"The Anne Arundel County robbery is almost exactly scripted from that movie," DiBiagio said.
During the late-night search of the Zenone home May 4, police found thousands of dollars worth of golf clubs and athletic clothing -- some stolen from Hunt Valley Golf Club -- along with 21 rifles, about $5,000, police-radio scanners, videocassette recorders and boxes of compact discs.
Michael Zenone worked as a bartender at Hunt Valley Golf Club, where Smith's Jeep Cherokee was found after the killings.
Charles G. Bernstein and William N. Butler, lawyers for the brothers, had no comment during the hearing. Neither they nor the Zenones' parents would talk to reporters after the hearing.
Pub Date: 5/14/96
