An elderly German architect; his 35-year-old Greek roommate; and a 6-foot-5-inch, 350-pound Dean & DeLuca security guard were indicted yesterday on charges of kidnapping and robbing the agent for a Manhattan property owner. Prosecutors say that some time last year the brawny Kakhaber Gogoladze, a Georgian national in the U.S. illegally, approached the unidentified property agent and told him to get in a car. He was driven to the apartment shared by 70-year-old Ekkehart Schwarz and Vasileios Giamagas, who were $267,000 behind on the rent for a lounge space at 68 West Third Street (pictured), where they'd failed to open a nightclub.
The property agent had been trying to collect the back rent, but he agreed to just let that go when he noticed the tarp on the floor in Schwarz's living room; not to mention the table piled with pliers, a hammer, a screwdriver, and a burning candle; to say nothing of Giamagas's alleged boast that he was a former mercenary in the Chechen army who'd killed his own brother and blew up a building with more than 80 people in it. According to prosecutors, the defendants also took seven blank checks from the terrified agent and cashed one of them for $25,000.
Gogoladze and Schwarz are being held on bail of $1.5 million and $350,000, respectively, while Giamagas is being held without bail. If convicted, each could face up to 25 years in prison. The Times tracked down a relative of the unnamed agent, who would only speak to the paper anonymously, saying, "We were terrified. You don’t know what you’re dealing with." But outside the courtroom yesterday, a lawyer for Giamagas told reporters the charges were nothing more than "a tale."
