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“You chose a life of crime, of cocaine, because you could,” Presiding Bergen County Superior Court Judge Liliana DeAvila Silebi told Nicholas Kiriakakis. “It is very clear to me that you are in dire need of self reflection. That is the only thing that is going to get you out of this hell.”
DeAvila-Silebi said she was troubled that money Kiriakakis, 29, received from the victims before they were killed was never accounted for.
As a result, she fined him $150,000 .
She then directed Bergen County Sheriff’s officers to take Kirakakis to the Bergen County Jail so that he could be processed and begin his state prison sentence. Relatives of the victims smirked as he was led out in handcuffs.
Kiriakakis’s expression didn’t change at any point throughout the proceeding.
Afterward, loved ones who attended cried and hugged one another outside the courtroom.
Earlier, he told the judge: “I have learned my lesson, and I am not going to mess around anymore. I just want to start my life the way it was before this all started.”
Jurors in December found Kiriakakis not guilty of the February 2010 hit on both men as they sat in an SUV on Oakdene Avenue.
They convicted him, however, of conspiracy and hindering apprehension.
Kiriakakis would have faced a potential life sentence if convicted of the murders. But there were no eyewitnesses, no recovered weapon and no other evidence that placed him at the scene. Silebi gave Kiriakakis eight years for the conspiracy conviction and five for hindering his arrest.
Prosecutors said Kiriakakis plotted to buy cocaine with counterfeit money and then sell it for cash to help satisfy creditors after he and some partners ended up more than $1 million in the hole after investing in what became a failed nightclub.
However, after taking tens of thousands of dollars from two friends, he was unable to get the drugs, they said — and so, in turn, killed them in Teaneck, where his uncle owns property.
Kiriakakis’s defense lawyer showed evidence that the lenders were already afraid of someone else and that one of them applied for a $6.5 million life insurance policy the very day he was killed.
He emphasized that Kiriakakis and the victims were small-time criminals “swimming with sharks,” and that the executions were obviously done by someone with experience at it.
Kiriakakis was also acquitted of two counts of criminal possession of a 9mm handgun that authorities said was used in the shooting.
STORY / PHOTO: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
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