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John Zechowski, 72, will be on probation for three years, will have to continue psychotherapy and must undergo domestic-violence counseling under the sentence pronounced by Superior Court Judge James J. Guida.
The victim’s relatives shook their heads in disgust, her niece driven nearly to tears, when the judge mentioned probation. They relaxed a bit, however, when Guida imposed jail time.
Police originally suspected that Zechowski injected the woman with GHB, a date-rape drug, after she dumped him several weeks earlier. But a toxicology screen found something more lethal.
The insulin sent her into a diabetic coma that loved ones said would have killed her if she hadn’t been hospitalized after the attack.
“The crime committed was heinous,” Guida said. “He portrayed himself as a delivery person because he knew she would not have let him in. He assaulted her and injected her not with a date rape drug, but with insulin. And while her medical problems were not anticipated by the defendant, she nearly died.”
Emotionally unable to attend court, the victim wrote an impact statement that was read this afternoon by her niece.
In it, the woman told Zechowski that she broke up with him “not because there was someone else in my life but because you are a compulsive liar.”
He also bombarded her with constant and abusive calls, the woman said, to the point that she stopped answering her phone. Zechowski’s stepbrother and another male relative assaulted her with abusive language, as well, she said.
This past March 22, the victim wrote, she was waiting for a parcel delivery when she heard her doorbell. She looked out and saw “a man with a hooded jacket tied tightly around his head and a large box in front of his face.”
When she opened the door, she said, Zechowski “hit me across the shoulders and the back of my head, causing me to fall over a rocking chair…. He beat me with the large heavy box.”
All the time, she said, he shouted: “Why can’t you love me?”
Then he pulled the syringe from his pocket.
“What are you doing?” she cried.
“This is a date rape drug,” she said he told her, “because you need to calm down.”
The woman said she eventually broke free, her shirt covered in blood, and ran into the street screaming for help. A neighbor who heard her immediately called police.
As the ambulance was taking her to the hospital, Zechowski continued calling her cellphone, asking where she was and what she was doing, CLIFFVIEW PILOT has learned.
Once at The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, she went into the coma. Her potassium level was depleted, and she suffered Stage 3 kidney failure.
Doctors stabilized the woman, but her blood pressure remained out of control for days. At times, she lost consciousness.
All the while, Zechowski kept calling.
Her niece said she answered and asked what was in the syringe. She said he told her it was a toy.
The victim said she is being treated for AIDS and hepatitis because Zechowski still won’t reveal whether the syringe – which police believe he took from a diabetic aunt — was clean or used.
Defense attorney Brian Neary told Guida that Zechowski had been a teacher his entire life and an upstanding member of the community who’d never gotten into trouble before.
“It’s rare I appear on behalf of a septuagenarian who finds himself in a situation like this after living an exemplary life,” Neary said. “He is otherwise blameless for 72 years.”
Zechowski – who has residences in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and Chicopee, Mass. — apologized to the judge. He never addressed his ex-girlfriend’s family, however.
“I’m sorry for what happened. I really loved her very much,” he told Guida. “And it was hard to accept the fact she didn’t want to see me anymore.
“I’m heartily sorry. I really am,” he said. “I didn’t feel I should lose her at that time.”
After a few hushed words from Neary, Zechowski told the judge: “Over is over. I accept that. I’m sorry for everything.”
Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Jessica Gomperts said the plea agreement was struck with the victim uppermost in mind. She’s still fearful, Gomperts said, and can’t sleep for more than three hours at a time. She simply wouldn’t have been to withstand a trial.
“In my line of work, I see a lot of people commit crimes under the misguided thought that it is a show of love,” Gomperts told the judge. “They commit stalking, break-ins and other crimes.
“I see a lot of people who are so-called ‘sick with love’ and it causes them to make horrible decisions that are criminal, as well,” she continued.
“In this case, although I’m not unaware [that] Mr. Zechowski has lived 72 years without so much as a speeding ticket, the defendant pleaded guilty to a third-degree offense,” the prosecutor said. “That is still a felony.”
Zechowski, who has remained free on $100,000 bail, has until Thursday, Oct. 11, to settle his affairs and begin serving his sentence.
STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
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