A Philadelphia man accused of pushing his estranged wife's red Corvette into the Delaware River amid a messy divorce is set to go on trial Thursday.
"I didn't realize that I did anything wrong," John Kramer said upon his arrest last year. "I didn't know anybody was gonna go in and try to get the car! I didn't even want anybody to see me do it!"
Kramer, 50, faces contempt, violation of protection from abuse order, harassment and recklessly endangerment charges. Police said that last charge is for endangering the divers who searched for the car.
Kramer's wife told NBC10 the two were in the midst of a messy divorce and he was "disgruntled" over a protective order she had against him when he took it out on her sports car.
The Northeast Philadelphia resident also claimed her husband sent threatening texts to her and their teenage daughter moments before he pushed their car into the river.
"He had threatened that he would put the car in the river," the estranged wife said. "He then texted my daughter and said, 'You have two minutes,' and then he texted back and said, 'It’s done LOL.'"
The woman asked not to be identified, saying she has a protection from abuse (PFA) order against her husband.
The woman said she called 911 on Nov. 10 after seeing breaking news reports about a 1990 red Corvette in the water near Magee Lane and New State Road, just below Interstate 95, in Northeast Philly.
"I called 911 and asked them if that was my car, and they confirmed that it was, but we didn’t know at the time if he was in the car or not,” she said.
Witnesses told police a man, matching Kramer's description, fled the scene shortly after the car fell into the water.
The woman said she recently tried to work out a car exchange with her husband, but it didn't go well.
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“He had wanted to switch the Corvette for the van and indicated that he wanted to come get it,” she said. "I told him he had to leave the ‘vette in order to get the van. He wasn’t allowed to come here, so he would have to wait for somebody to meet with him.”
The woman claims Kramer violated the PFA and repeatedly tried to get in touch with her throughout the day of the incident.
"Because I have the PFA ... I ignored him all day, and he was texting me and also calling my work phone, and I just saved the messages and showed them to the detectives,” she said.
The couple is going through a divorce. Their issues escalated after her adult son died in June, the wife told NBC10's Rosemary Connors.
