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Murder pleas are rare in Bergen County, where deals are often cut for just about every other charge.
Nile “OG Cripp” Diakos, 36, nonetheless got a deal from prosecutors in the March 26, 2022 stabbing death of Alicia Arnone, 35.
In exchange for his guilty plea, the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office agreed to a 30-year sentence – with no parole.
Another five will be tacked on for stalking and weapons possession by a convicted felon.
Diakos was at the apartment with Arnone’s 13-year-old daughter when Leonia police responded to their 911 call, a complaint on file in Superior Court in Hackensack says.
Officers found Arnone face down in a pool of blood with a knife near her head, the complaint says.
Arnone, who'd attended Palisades Park Junior-Senior High School decades ago, was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics who’d found her stabbed repeatedly in the neck and chest.
The girl said she found her dying mother at the top of their garden apartment stairs after being woken by her screams.
Arnone pinned it on Arnone’s former live-in boyfriend -- and the girl's father -- Andrae Daniels of Lodi with murder.
It was understandable, those who knew the couple said, because Daniels -- an ex-con with a 20-year rap sheet -- had regularly abused Arnone, who'd received an order of protection against him.
Musella’s detectives probed further, however, and murder charges that they'd originally filed against Daniels were dropped.
Diakos, they soon learned, had killed Arnone and then slipped out of the apartment when he heard the young girl coming.
He then doubled back in order to make it look like he was "just arriving at the residence," the criminal complaint later filed against him says.
Diakos also spoke with an unidentified confidante who recorded him confessing to stabbing Arnone multiple times, the complaint says.
Diakos – who authorities said tried to hang himself in his cell at the Bergen County Jail in June 2022 -- must serve out the entire murder conviction and then the additional five years for the stalking and weapons convictions.
He'd be at least 66 years old when he’s eventually released.
Securing the pleas and sentences were Assistant Bergen County Prosecutors Stephen Bollenbach and Christine Caputo-Howland, assisted by Sergeant Anthony Primiano of the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office Major Crimes Unit.
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