On Monday, a lawyer was found dead after his 18-year-old roommate allegedly bludgeoned him with a hammer in their Queens apartment. Attorney Jesse Smith, 29, was found with severe head trauma inside his luxury apartment building on 21st Street in Astoria around 3:30 p.m. Monday. His roommate, 18-year-old Quentin Capobianco, now claims that Smith had tied him up and forced him to liquidate stocks before the fatal incident.

According to the Post, Capobianco claims Smith wanted him to liquidate stocks to "reimburse him for damages to a wall and furniture that were caused by a mishap with their wall-mounted fireplace."

Capobianco says Smith held him with zip ties, but he was able to get free; he then grabbed a hammer and hit Smith over the head several times. “I grabbed the hammer from the kitchen and hit Jessie three or four times until he was unconscious,” Capobianco told the police.

"They had a disagreement over money that Quentin owed Jesse," a woman who identified herself as Smith's ex-girlfriend told the News. "Quentin beat Jesse to death with a hammer with no less than five, six blows to the head, according to the surgeon who tried to save Jesse’s life."

Initially, police sources indicated that Smith may have had a heroin addiction, but the ex-girlfriend, as well as a man they identify as Smith's father, denied that. Neighbors told the Post that Smith took Capobianco in about five months ago to help cover some of the costs, and he acted as a kind of mentor to the younger man: "They were both really fancy, wearing expensive clothes," Sylvia Barron, who works at a local cleaner where Smith and Copobianco set up a joint account in December, told the News. "Jesse talked directly, Quentin was kind of quiet. My God, that’s terrible."

Smith worked as a personal injury lawyer for Forest Hills firm Morton Povman, P.C.; Capobianco wrote on his LinkedIn page that he was working for Smith as a paralegal while studying economics at St. John’s University. DNAInfo reports that the two also ran a currency exchange business centered around Bitcoin.

Capobianco, has been charged with second degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon.