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Tick-Tock Diner manager admits murder-for-hire plot

BEYOND BERGEN: The former manager of the former manager of Clifton’s Tick Tock Diner admitted in court today in Paterson that he tried to hire a hit man to kill his uncle.

Photo Credit: Cliffview Pilot File Photo

Georgios Spyropoulos, 46, admitted conspiring to have his uncle tortured, robbed and killed for a large amount of money he believed he kept in a safe, as part of a plea bargain.

In exchange, he is expected to receive an eight-year prison sentence, followed by five years of supervised release.

“Thanks to the New Jersey State Police, we have a guilty nephew going to prison, instead of an uncle in a shallow grave,” said state Acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman. “Had they not intervened, this murder plot appears likely to have been carried out, because Spyropoulos did everything in his power to set it in motion, including delivering a gun and a down payment to the man he hired to kill his uncle.”

Alexandros Sgourdos, who manages the family’s 8th Avenue diner in Manhattan and co-owns both eateries, was the target of the plot, authorities said.

Once the money was taken, they said, Spyropoulos wanted his uncle killed and his body disposed of so that people would think he went missing.

Detectives learned through a confidential informant that Spyropoulos was looking for someone to kill Sgourdos for him, said Col. Rick Fuentes, the NJSP superintendent. The C.I. was then able to introduce an undercover trooper to play the part of a would-be assassin, he said.

Spyropoulos gave the trooper an unregistered handgun, along with a photo of the target, the uncle’s address, and a $3,000 down payment — with at least another $20,000 to follow, the colonel said.

The usual lunchtime crowd had packed the landmark diner on Route 3 when Spyropoulos was arrested there on April 9, 2013 by detectives from the NJSP’s Violent and Organized Crime North Bureau.

Investigators reported finding four weapons in his Clifton home, including two semiautomatic handguns, along with six cell phones and several thousand dollars in cash in his Mercedes.

“The New Jersey State Police prevented a case of bad blood within a family business from turning into a case of cold-blooded murder,” Hoffman originally said. “If there had not been a State Police informant and an undercover detective positioned to foil this murder plot, the result would have been tragic.”

Spyropoulos, he said, “took every step necessary to hire and equip men he believed would brutally murder his uncle and steal his money.”

Supervising Deputy Attorney General Lauren Scarpa Yfantis, chief of the Gangs & Organized Crime Bureau, and Deputy Attorney General Annmarie Taggart, the deputy bureau chief, presented the indictment to the state grand jury for the Division of Criminal Justice.

The investigation was led by State Police Detective Sgt. Peter Layng of the Drug Trafficking North Unit, Hoffman said.

Spyropoulos posted $600,000 after his bail was reduced from $1 million and has remained free.

He signed a consent order today that prohibits him from ever having any contact with the victim, the victim’s family or any of the family’s businesses in the future.

Sentencing was set for Sept. 19.

TOP: NEWS 12 PHOTO

 

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