Masked men injected couple with fake ‘deadly’ virus and demanded $8.5 million, feds say
A philanthropist and her partner were bound, blindfolded and injected with what they were told was a “deadly” virus by three masked men during a Connecticut home invasion in 2007, federal prosecutors said.
After the injections, the men demanded the couple to hand over $8.5 million “in exchange for the antidote” — or else they’d die, according to prosecutors.
Now, one of the men is going to prison nearly 18 years after prosecutors said he held multimillionaire Anne Bass and her partner, painter Julian Lethbridge, hostage in the home Bass owned in South Kent, about a 50-mile drive southwest from Hartford.
Stefan Alexandru Barabas, a 38-year-old Romanian citizen, was sentenced to 7 years in prison on a charge of conspiracy to interfere with commerce by extortion, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut said in a Dec. 6 news release.
His defense attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News.
Barabas, who was a fugitive until he was arrested in Hungary in August 2022, pleaded guilty to the charge on June 18, according to prosecutors. Three other men have been previously sentenced in connection with the home invasion, prosecutors said.
The substance Barabas and his co-conspirators injected Bass and Lethbridge with was gentian violet — an antifungal medicine — instead of a lethal virus, according to prosecutors.
Bass died at age 78 in her Manhattan, New York home on April 1, 2020, according to The New York Times, which described her as an “arts patron who helped raise the profile of ballet in the United States.”
She recalled how she felt during the home invasion in a statement prosecutors included in Barabas’ sentencing documents, in which she wrote, “I was sure I was going to die.”
“And I kept thinking that my daughter who was about to deliver a baby was going to wake up in the morning and find her mother dead…”
The home invasion
Barabas broke into Bass’ home with Emanuel Nicolescu and Alexandru Lucian Nicolescu before midnight during what was a rainy evening on April 15, 2007, according to court documents.
The men wielded knives, fake guns and shouted “war cries” while entering the home, prosecutors wrote in court documents.
They tied up and blindfolded Bass and Lethbridge before injecting them with a purported lethal virus, prosecutors said.
They held Bass and Lethbridge hostage for five hours, prosecutors said.
A fourth man, Michael Kennedy, waited outside, according to prosecutors, who said he drove the other men to Bass’ home.
When Bass and Lethbridge didn’t have the money, the trio forced them to drink a sleeping aid and fled in Bass’ Jeep Cherokee, according to prosecutors.
Gerald J. McMahon, an attorney who represented Emanuel Nicolescu, declined McClatchy News’ request for comment Dec. 9.
Alexandru Nicolescu’s attorneys didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment and an attorney who represented Michael Kennedy couldn’t immediately be reached.
Evidence is located
The morning after the home invasion, Bass’ vehicle was abandoned at a Home Depot in New Rochelle, New York, a New York City suburb, according to prosecutors.
In Jamaica Bay, an estuary southwest of New Rochelle on Long Island, New York, an accordion case linked to the crime washed up on the shore nearly a week later, according to prosecutors.
The accordion case was “proof of the extent of the planning involved” in the crime, prosecutors wrote in court filings.
Syringes, a stun gun, a 12-inch knife, a black plastic Airsoft gun, sleeping pills and a laminated telephone card with Bass’ address were inside the case, according to prosecutors.
In 2010, a Connecticut State Police investigator linked a license plate seen near Bass’ home during the home invasion to a car that belonged to Kennedy, prosecutors said.
The investigator learned Kennedy had once lived with Emmanuel Nicolescu, who worked for Bass, according to prosecutors. He was Bass’ butler, the Hartford Courant reported.
Emanuel Nicolescu’s DNA was found to match DNA located inside Bass’ stolen Jeep, prosecutors said.
Ultimately, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said “the investigation revealed that Emanuel Nicolescu and Kennedy worked with Barabas and Alexandru Nicolescu to commit the crime.” (release).
The crime was planned by Barabas’ co-conspirators, prosecutors said.
All four men fled the U.S. while the investigation was underway, according to prosecutors
“Even as Barabas moved on with his life — marrying, starting a family, and ‘relocating’ to Romania and then Hungary … Lethbridge and Bass were not given that relief,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
“(Barabas) bears a full share among the four defendants not just for the horror he caused in April 2007, but also for extending the victims’ pain well beyond that night,” the sentencing memorandum says.
Barabas has been in custody since he was arrested in Hungary in 2022, according to prosecutors.
Other men sentenced
In August 2012, Emanuel Nicolescu was sentenced to 20 years in prison on charges of attempted extortion, conspiracy to commit extortion and possession of a stolen vehicle, according to prosecutors.
Michael Kennedy was sentenced to four years in prison in May 2016 on charges of attempted extortion and a conspiracy to commit extortion, prosecutors said.
In May 2019, Alexandru Nicolescu was sentenced to 10 years and one month in prison on charges of attempted extortion and a conspiracy to commit extortion, according to prosecutors.
This story was originally published December 9, 2024 at 12:52 PM with the headline "Masked men injected couple with fake ‘deadly’ virus and demanded $8.5 million, feds say."
.jpg)