Boston med student in Craigslist killing expected to face new charges in RI

RI authorities to announce charges in hotel attack

WARWICK, R.I. — The Boston medical student charged with killing a masseuse he met on Craigslist is expected to face new charges soon in Rhode Island.

Rhode Island prosecutors said Monday that they will announce an arrest warrant in the attempted robbery of a stripper inside a hotel last month.

They’ve previously said Philip Markoff, who is charged in Boston with killing the masseuse, was the suspect in the April 16 robbery attempt at a Holiday Inn Express in Warwick.

A law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity previously told The Associated Press that investigators found Markoff’s fingerprint in the hotel. They also believe he sent text messages from there.

An exotic dancer from Las Vegas who offered lap dances told Rhode Island authorities that she was bound with cord and held at gunpoint by a man she met through Craigslist, a classified advertising Web site. She said her assailtant fled when her husband came up to the hotel room.

Markoff, 23, was arrested April 20 on Interstate 95 while driving with his fiancee to Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut.

He was charged with the April 14 killing of Julissa Brisman, a 25-year-old New York City resident who advertised on Craigslist, at the Boston Marriott Copley Place hotel, in the historic Back Bay district.

He has also been charged in a separate robbery at a hotel of another masseuse police say he met through the site.

He has pleaded not guilty. His lawyer, John Salsberg, did not return a phone message Monday.

Markoff was put on suicide watch at the Boston jail where he is being held.

Warwick police officials did not return phone calls seeking comment Monday.