A Romanian national, Stefan Alexandru Barabas, has pleaded guilty to charges related to a 2007 home invasion in Connecticut, where he and two accomplices injected victims with a fake virus and demanded millions for an antidote. The Justice Department announced the plea on Tuesday.
Barabas, 38, along with Emanuel and Alexandru Nicolescu, broke into a Connecticut home, armed with knives and fake firearms. They tied up and blindfolded two victims before injecting them with a substance they falsely claimed was a deadly virus. The assailants then demanded $8.5 million for the antidote. When the victims were unable to meet the demand, the intruders drugged them with a sleep aid and fled in the victims’ vehicle.
Authorities found the abandoned vehicle in New York, and days later, an accordion case belonging to the intruders washed ashore in Jamaica Bay. The case contained a stun gun, knife, plastic airsoft gun, crowbar, syringes, and other tools used in the crime.
In 2010, a Connecticut State detective linked a partial Pennsylvania license plate seen near the victims’ residence to a car owned by Michael Kennedy, who had lived with Emanuel Nicolescu. Nicolescu had previously worked for one of the victims. By analyzing cell tower data, the detective identified a call made by Nicolescu near the home on the night of the crime. DNA evidence from the stolen vehicle’s steering wheel confirmed the connection to the suspects.
The three men fled the country after the crime. Emanuel was arrested in 2011 upon his return to the U.S. Michael Kennedy, a U.S.-Romanian dual citizen also known as Nicolae Helerea, voluntarily returned to the U.S. and pleaded guilty to attempted extortion and conspiracy to commit extortion in 2012. Alexandru was apprehended in the United Kingdom in 2013, while Barabas was captured in Hungary in 2022.
Barabas faces up to seven years in prison, with his sentencing hearing scheduled for September 11.
