Man Convicted In Russia, Gets 19 Years For Killing Wife, Stepdaughter In Brooklyn
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- A man who authorities said fatally stabbed his wife and her adult daughter in Brooklyn before fleeing to Russia has been tried and convicted overseas.
The ruling marked the second time anyone has been convicted in Russia for a crime committed in the U.S., prosecutors said Thursday.
Authorities said Nikolai Rakossi stabbed his 56-year-old wife, Tatyana Prikhodko, and her 27-year-old daughter, Larisa, and killed them in April 2011.
Police discovered the victims' bodies at 2299 East 13th St. in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, while responding to a missing persons report. Both women suffered multiple stab wounds to the face and abdomen.
Surveillance video showed Rakossi leaving the apartment building five hours earlier.
Brooklyn prosecutors and homicide detectives immediately suspected Rakossi, but the Russian immigrant was already on a flight to his homeland by the time investigators discovered the women dead.
Rakossi had purchased a one-way ticket to Moscow before the bodies were found, and investigators believe he went straight to John F. Kennedy International Airport after killing his wife and her daughter, according to prosecutors.
Authorities found Rakossi in Russia in October 2013, but prosecutors couldn't extradite him to the U.S. because the two countries do not have a treaty allowing for that, said a spokeswoman for Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson. However, a ``mutual legal assistance treaty'' allowed Rakossi to be tried in Russia even though the killings were committed in the U.S.
After a trial that lasted nearly three months, Rakossi was convicted Wednesday in Tula, Russia, and was sentenced to 19 years in prison, prosecutors said. The district attorney's office spokeswoman said Rakossi did not have an attorney in the U.S. and it was not immediately clear whether he had a lawyer in Russia who could comment.
``This defendant cowardly slaughtered his wife and her daughter in Brooklyn before fleeing to Russia, where he thought he could escape justice,'' Thompson said. ``This rare type of prosecution ensures the defendant will be held accountable and punished for the horrific crimes that he committed back here.''
In 2012, a Russian court convicted a man of killing his two roommates in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
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