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Speaking through an interpreter, 28-year-old Melsi Pajo admitted in Superior Court in Hackensack to shooting 29-year-old Lukasz Goralczyk with a pistol outside the Zoom Pub at 115 Main Street on June 23, 2011 after the two men argued inside. Goralczyk later underwent emergency surgery at Hackensack University Medical Center.
An Albanian resident alien with a green card, Pajo was arrested in Florida by detectives from the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office as he walked out of an area pizzeria on July 25, 2011 as CLIFFVIEW PILOT was the first to report.
Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Danielle Grootenboer said she’ll recommend 13 years in state prison in exchange for Pajo’s plea. Under the No Early Release Act, he’ll have to serve 85% of his sentence — a little more than 11 years — before he is eligible for parole.
Pajo, who’s been in the U.S. the past nine years, said he didn’t know Goralczyk when the two got into a fight and took it outside the bar.
He admitted later calling friends to come get him, then went to his apartment to retrive the handgun.
“You knew the gun was loaded, and you pointed it at the victim’s chest, correct?” Grootenboer asked Pajo, who answered “Yes.”
Presiding Superior Court Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi affirmed that Pajo will be deported once he completes his prison sentence.
A tipster told detectives that Christina Hamdan — one of four other people charged with hindering the investigation — drove Pajo, of Farnham Avenue in Garfield, to Jacksonville, Fla., Bergen County Acting Prosecutor Frank Puccio said at the time.
Investigators tracked Pajo to the Tampa area, where he was staying with friends from high school.
The detectives called in U.S. marshals, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office — and it was simple from there.
Also charged with Hamdan were Petrick Agascra, Ervin Keco and Eno Cami, as well as Blerim Kozici, who they said fled to his native Albania after the shooting and was arrested soon after he returned to the U.S.
The four were variously accused of helping to plan Pajo’s escape to Florida, where he intended to board a ship for Albania and escape prosecution, spiriting him from the bar after the shooting, hiding him in three of their homes, lending him a car, and lying to investigators about his whereabouts.
Kozici was admitted to Pre-Trial Intervention. The other four took guilty pleas and are expected to receive probation when they’re sentenced on Oct. 25.
STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
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