By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — A pair of failed nightclub entrepeneurs kidnapped and threatened to torture their landlord’s agent to get out of paying $267,000 in back rent, prosecutors said Thursday.
Vasileios Giamagas and Ekkehart Schwarz allegedly used the mafia-inspired tactics to duck rent payments they’d racked up on their planned Greenwich Village bar and club between 2007 – 2009, prosecutors said during the first day of their kidnapping and extortion trial.
The duo allegedly hired a muscle-bound henchman to abduct their landlord’s agent, Niroo Yavari, and bring him to Schwarz’s downtown apartment.
There, Yavari found a table full of instruments of torture, including a lit candle, a pair of pliers and a realistic-looking fake gun, prosecutors said.
Yavari quickly dismissed the outstanding rent and handed over $25,000 in signed checks, prosecutors said.
Schwarz, 71, a chef, and Giamagas, 35, an architect, refute the claims, accusing Yavari of making up the torture tale to conceal his own unscrupulous business dealings.
Schwarz, Giamagas and alleged strong-man, Kakhaber Gogoladze, face up to 25 years in prison if convicted of charges including extortion, coercion and kidnapping.
