Romanian National Gets 10 Years for 2007 CT Home Invasion

Armed and masked, they stormed a quiet home in South Kent, Connecticut, just before midnight on April 15, 2007. Alexandru Lucian Nicolescu, 41, a citizen of Romania, injected two adult victims with syringes he claimed carried a deadly virus—pure terror disguised as biological warfare. The demand: $8.5 million or die. When the victims couldn’t pay, the invaders drugged them with sleeping pills and vanished in the homeowners’ Jeep Cherokee. The nightmare was real, and Nicolescu was at its center.

The next morning, the stolen Jeep Cherokee was dumped at a Home Depot in New Rochelle, New York. Days later, an accordion case washed up in Jamaica Bay—inside, a cache of crime tools: a stun gun, a 12-inch knife, an Airsoft pistol, syringes, sleeping pills, latex gloves, and a laminated card bearing the victims’ South Kent address. It was a trail of evidence left behind like breadcrumbs, leading investigators down a twisted path of conspiracy, flight, and international fugitive status.

For years, the case went cold—until a Connecticut State Police investigator in 2010 re-examined a partial Pennsylvania license plate seen near the estate the night of the attack. It traced back to Michael N. Kennedy, who once shared an address with Emanuel Nicolescu, a former employee of one of the victims. Cell tower data revealed a call from a number registered to Emanuel Nicolescu minutes after the Jeep was abandoned. A DNA sample from the Jeep’s steering wheel partially matched him. The net began to close.

The investigation exposed a four-man crew: Alexandru Lucian Nicolescu, Emanuel Nicolescu (no relation), Michael N. Kennedy—also known as Nicolae Helerea—and Stefan Alexandru Barabas. Together, they planned the home invasion meticulously, buying two-way radios, stun guns, and imitation pistols. On April 15, 2007, Kennedy drove the trio to South Kent and picked them up the next morning in New Rochelle. The accordion case? Linked to Kennedy’s father, a professional accordion player—the knife inside confirmed as a gift to Emanuel Nicolescu from his father-in-law.

While Emanuel Nicolescu was arrested in Illinois in 2011 and later convicted on multiple counts including attempted extortion and possession of a stolen vehicle, he was sentenced to 240 months in prison on August 17, 2012. Kennedy, a Romanian citizen, returned voluntarily from Romania, pleaded guilty to attempted extortion and conspiracy on November 5, 2012, and was sentenced on May 4, 2016. Alexandru Lucian Nicolescu, however, vanished—fleeing the U.S. on April 16, 2007.

Nicolescu remained on the run until November 14, 2013, when he was arrested in the United Kingdom. He fought extradition but lost. On November 25, 2014, he was flown back to the U.S. He pleaded guilty on January 8, 2016, to one count of attempted extortion and one count of conspiracy to commit extortion. Today, U.S. District Judge Vanessa L. Bryant sentenced him to 121 months in federal prison—ten long years for a crime that shattered lives and exposed the chilling reach of calculated domestic terror.