Officials said the victim was tricked into traveling from Jamestown, New York, to a Pennsylvania property where he was killed and buried.
BUFFALO, N.Y. — More than a decade after Joseph Anthony was taken from Jamestown and killed in Pennsylvania, a federal judge sentenced Anthony Neubauer to 20 years in prison for his role in the kidnapping that led to the death, authorities announced.
Neubauer, 39, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting kidnapping, and the sentence handed down Feb. 24 marked the latest step in a case investigators described as a cold-case murder that required years of work by local police and the FBI. The case mattered not only because of the age of the killing, but because it showed how federal prosecutors used the interstate kidnapping to build accountability in a death that began in New York and ended on rural land in Pennsylvania.
According to prosecutors, Anthony was lured on May 27, 2014, by an offer of cocaine. He left Jamestown with Neubauer and Matthew Rudy and traveled south to property owned by Rudy in Pennsylvania. Authorities said the trip was not what Anthony had been led to expect. After they arrived, prosecutors said, Neubauer and Rudy told him they did not have any cocaine. Anthony was then shot and killed, and his body was buried on Rudy’s property. In announcing the sentence, DiGiacomo said the men acted to silence someone they believed was cooperating in a law enforcement investigation, a statement that framed the killing as both planned and retaliatory.
Public court summaries offer a narrow but powerful set of facts. They identify the victim, the date, the route and the place where the body was buried. They identify Rudy as the owner of the Pennsylvania property and say he has already been sentenced to five years in prison after being convicted as an accessory after the fact. They also show that Neubauer’s federal conviction came from a plea, not a trial, which spared prosecutors from having to re-litigate every detail in open court. What remains less clear in the public record is how the original case stalled, what led investigators back to it years later and which witnesses or forensic steps proved decisive. Officials have said only that Jamestown police sought FBI help and that resources were pushed into western New York and northern Pennsylvania.
That cold-case dimension is what gave the sentencing broader weight. Homicide cases that stretch over a decade can grow thin in the public mind, even when families and investigators keep pressing forward. Here, prosecutors used consistent language to stress persistence. They said time had passed, but that law enforcement continued working until it uncovered Neubauer’s conduct. The case also reflects the way federal and local authorities divide labor. Jamestown police led from the local side. The FBI supplied broader resources. The Warren County district attorney’s office in Pennsylvania provided help because the burial site fell within its reach. Taken together, the case became a regional effort rather than a single-jurisdiction prosecution.
The legal path is now mostly complete. Rudy was sentenced in June 2025. Neubauer, who had already pleaded guilty in 2024, was sentenced in February 2026 by Wolford in Buffalo. Federal officials have not announced additional defendants or upcoming court dates tied to Anthony’s death. They also have not publicly outlined any unresolved collateral matters, such as restitution or separate state proceedings. In practical terms, the next step is service of the sentence and whatever standard post-judgment motions might arise in federal court. Unless there is an appeal or another filing, the public case file is likely to move quietly after a long and violent history that ended with two prison sentences.
The story still carries the plain details that often define a cold-case file: a lure, a drive, a remote property and a body hidden after a shooting. Officials have not needed dramatic language to describe it. Their account is simple enough on its own. A man was told he was going to get drugs. He was instead taken over the state line by people who believed he might talk to police. He was killed and buried. Years later, investigators came back with enough evidence to persuade one man to plead guilty and another to accept punishment for helping after the fact. That sequence, more than any nickname attached to the defendant, is what gives the case its lasting force.
With Neubauer sentenced and Rudy already serving his punishment, the federal prosecution has reached its clearest endpoint so far. The next public milestone would likely come only if a new court filing, appeal or additional investigative action changes a case that prosecutors now describe as largely resolved.
Author note: Last updated March 23, 2026.