Owner of Comedy Club and Nanny Are Killed at N.J. Home – The New York Times

The owner of a high-profile comedy club in New York City and his family’s au pair were both killed at his suburban New Jersey home on Saturday, the authorities said on Sunday.

The police in Maplewood, N.J., responded to a 911 call around sunrise on Saturday about a woman being assaulted at a home. After arriving at the area of Walton Road and Jefferson Avenue, officers found the woman, Karen L. Bermudez-Rodriguez, 26, lying in the street critically injured.

They later found the homeowner, David Kimowitz, 40, dead inside the house, the Essex County prosecutor’s office said.

Ms. Bermudez-Rodriguez, an au pair for the Kimowitz family’s children, was pronounced dead at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center. The family’s children and Mr. Kimowitz’s wife, Laura, were not at home at the time of the attack, the authorities said.

On Sunday, the boyfriend of Ms. Bermudez-Rodriguez, Joseph D. Porter, 27, was charged with two counts of murder in connection with the deaths and was booked into the Essex County Correctional Facility.

Mr. Kimowitz was one of four founders of the Stand Restaurant and Comedy Club, a comedy venue near Gramercy Park in Manhattan that regularly draws high-profile performers like Janeane Garofalo and Dave Attell. He opened the club in September 2012.

Three years later, Mr. Kimowitz and the same group that had opened the Stand started the Standing Room comedy club in Long Island City, Queens. While they had hoped to attract top comedians to perform there, the Standing Room could not replicate the success of the Manhattan venue, and ended up closing last summer.

“A great guy and friend has passed this weekend,” Rich Vos, a comedian, said on Twitter. “He seemed so happy, a wife, 2 kids, his new club opened.”

A LinkedIn page for Mr. Kimowitz said that he had received a bachelor’s degree in history from Columbia University in New York in 2002 and had joined several comedy ventures, including a company called Cringe Humor, which had started the Stand. He was also a partner of CH Entertainment, a talent agency with clients that included Mr. Vos.