NEW HAVEN, CT—Stefan Alexandru Barabas, a 38-year-old Romanian citizen, has pleaded guilty to charges related to his involvement in a 2007 violent home invasion in South Kent, Connecticut. The plea was entered before U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer.
In a dramatic recount of the events, court documents revealed that on the night of April 15, 2007, Barabas, along with Emanuel Nicolescu and Alexandru Lucian Nicolescu, executed a meticulously planned invasion. The assailants, wearing masks and armed with knives and facsimile firearms, stormed a residential home, terrorizing the occupants by binding, blindfolding, and injecting them with a substance they claimed was lethal.
The victims were coerced under the threat of death to pay $8.5 million. Unable to secure the ransom, the invaders administered a sleeping aid to the residents and fled in the victim’s Jeep Cherokee, which was later found abandoned at a Home Depot in New Rochelle, New York.
The case saw significant breakthroughs in 2010 when a partial Pennsylvania license plate and a series of investigative leads connected Emmanuel Nicolescu and other conspirators to the crime. Critical DNA evidence from the abandoned Jeep and belongings packed in an accordion case further implicated the suspects.
He told his victims he had injected them with a deadly virus and demanded money for an antidote.
Barabas, who had evaded capture by fleeing the U.S., was finally apprehended in Hungary on August 16, 2022. His guilty plea to conspiracy to interfere with commerce by extortion brings a suggested prison sentence of 72 to 84 months, pending court approval.
Sentencing is scheduled for September 11, with Barabas remaining in custody until then. His co-conspirators have previously faced the legal consequences of their actions, receiving substantial prison terms for their roles in the elaborate criminal scheme.