> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.urgentmatter.press/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Police charge man with murder in 2024 death of SoHo art dealer Egizio Panetti - URL: https://www.urgentmatter.press/police-charge-man-with-murder-in-2024-death-of-soho-art-dealer-egizio-panetti/ - Published: 2026-11-02T19:20:37.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-02T19:24:53.000Z - Description: Larry Powlis, 60, was arrested Sunday in Midtown, more than two years after Panetti was found dead in his home. - Author: Adam Schrader - Tags: Law and Crime, #public-access Police have charged a 60-year-old registered sex offender with murder in the death of Egizio Panetti, an art dealer who ran the SoHo gallery Egizio's Project and was found dead at home in September 2024. Larry Powlis, listed by police as homeless, was arrested Sunday afternoon in Midtown, the NYPD confirmed to Urgent Matter on Monday. Court records reviewed by Urgent Matter show he was charged with intentional second-degree murder, a class A felony. Powlis is a Level 3 sex offender, the registry's highest risk tier, and is designated a sexually violent offender, New York's sex offender registry shows. He was convicted in January 1993 on two counts listed as "aggravated sexual assault and aggravated kidnapping with intent to abuse victim sexually" and sentenced to 32 years in state prison, the registry shows. [Add Urgent Matter on Google](https://www.google.com/preferences/source?q=urgentmatter.press&ref=urgentmatter.press) The registry lists the conviction as out of state, with the Texas Department of Public Safety as the arresting agency and May 1992 as the crime date. It gives Powlis' current address as transient in Santa Monica, California, and lists five other names he has used, including Lawrence Powlis and Larry Alexander. The NYPD's statement did not say how Panetti died or how detectives tied Powlis to the case. The arrest followed a shoplifting stop at a Midtown T.J. Maxx. A check of Powlis' name during the stop showed he was wanted in Panetti's strangling, the [New York Daily News first reported](https://www.nydailynews.com/2026/11/02/homeless-sex-offender-larry-powlis-arrested-murder-italian-art-dealer-egizio-panetti-soho-home/?ref=urgentmatter.press) Monday, citing police sources. Officers answering a 911 call found Panetti unresponsive inside 156 Spring Street at about 1 a.m. on September 22, 2024, and EMS pronounced him dead at the scene, the NYPD said. The department's statement said the city's medical examiner would determine the cause of death. Panetti had cancer, and a neighbor who looked in on him regularly found him after he did not pick up when she called earlier, the Daily News reported. ## Sign up for Urgent Matter This article is provided free with the support of paying subscribers. Not ready for a paid subscription? Sign up for a free account today. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Detectives suspected from the start that Panetti had been killed, the paper reported. It was December 2025 before the city medical examiner determined he had been asphyxiated and the death was classified a homicide. Panetti had been out in Greenwich Village, where he met Powlis, and the two men were recorded on video going into his apartment together, the Daily News reported. Powlis stayed the night, and later video showed him leaving in different clothes, with his camouflage pants still inside, the paper reported. Detectives did not have enough evidence to arrest Powlis at the time. He eventually left the city, the paper reported. Panetti was born in Egypt to parents from Italy's Veneto region, and his first name, Italian for "Egyptian," came from a grandfather who was an Egyptologist, the Italian art magazine [Juliet reported](https://1995-2015.undo.net/it/magazines/971348638?ref=urgentmatter.press) in October 2000\. He moved to New York in 1982 to study at Parsons School of Design, the magazine reported. He told Juliet he had been one of the first to bring Afro-Caribbean music into Manhattan's more established venues while still working as an art dealer and curating exhibitions. He said he had run nightclubs, booked bands on Thursday and Friday nights at Nell's, and started a record label. Panetti opened Egizio's Project about two years before the interview, in a space that had been his office, nearly across from the Guggenheim Museum's SoHo branch, the magazine reported. The gallery was "an umbrella of all the things that amuse me," Panetti told the magazine. He said he had shown work by Thomas Moller and Grimanesa Amorós and was planning a group show called "Women" and a solo show by Edwina Sandys, Winston Churchill's granddaughter. He was also publishing *Myselves*, a book of portraits of him by various artists, to accompany a traveling exhibition, the magazine reported. Exhibition listings on the art database [artist-info.com](https://www.artist-info.com/users/publicpagegallery/8193?ref=urgentmatter.press) place Egizio's Project at 596 Broadway and record 11 shows there from May 2000 to January 2003\. They include solo shows by Anna Lascari, Yasmine Chatila, Isabella Ducrot, Davide Lombardi, Anna Bialobroda and Beck Balken. Panetti's LinkedIn profile, which still lists him as a design and art consultant, calls Egizio's Project "an art gallery with classic experimental music on Sundays." It also lists work in banking, marketing and merchandising. Willow Auction House in Lincoln Park, New Jersey, offered [items from Panetti's estate](https://willowauctionhouse.com/auction/287-february-winter-uncurated/lot-9-signed-pastel/?ref=urgentmatter.press) in a [February 2025 sale](https://willowauctionhouse.com/auction/287-february-winter-uncurated/?ref=urgentmatter.press) of more than 400 lots. The auction house said Panetti "was for a time the partner of artist Hunt Slonem," and the sale included more than 20 of Slonem's paintings, many of them inscribed by the artist. One of them, a 1983 painting of a fish titled [Oranda](https://willowauctionhouse.com/auction/287-february-winter-uncurated/lot-266-hunt-slonem/?ref=urgentmatter.press), is inscribed "For Egizio after 2 years, Love, Hunt," the lot listing shows. It sold for $2,500, above its estimate of $1,000 to $1,500. A mixed-media piece by Italian artist Isabella Ducrot from "Realms," a 2001 exhibition at Egizio's Project, sold with catalogs from the show for $4,500\. The auction house had estimated it at $500 to $600. The sale [also included](https://willowauctionhouse.com/auction/287-february-winter-uncurated/lot-273-betty-tompkins/?ref=urgentmatter.press) a small portrait of Panetti by American painter Betty Tompkins, dated 2000 and inscribed "To Egizio, many thanks for the beautiful show!! Betty 12/00." It sold for $125. Willow said Panetti's collection also held work by photographer Sylvia Plachy and African masks. New York Focus [reported in October 2022](https://nysfocus.com/2022/10/13/courts-ghosting-disabled-virtual-appearances?ref=urgentmatter.press) that Panetti, then 65, was legally blind and being sued over alleged unpaid credit card debt. Before one court date, he received a Zoom link but no answer from the judge, the outlet reported. "The judge treated me like a criminal," Panetti told New York Focus. He said the judge scolded him for missing court and told him to have someone bring him next time. Court records show Powlis was scheduled to be arraigned Monday morning in Manhattan Criminal Court. The records did not list a defense attorney for him as of early Monday afternoon. *Urgent Matter is reader-supported. Please* [*consider subscribing*](https://www.urgentmatter.press/mta-first-amendment-museum-of-sex-bus-ads/#/portal) *to support independent arts journalism.*