Man Told Philanthropist and Partner He Injected Them with ‘Deadly Virus,’ Then Demanded Millions for Antidote

A man has confessed to being involved in a Connecticut home invasion over 15 years ago, where he injected two victims with a substance they were told was harmful, as part of a scheme to extort nearly $10 million.

Stefan Alexandru Barabas, 38, admitted to conspiring to interfere with commerce by extortion during the invasion of a South Kent, Conn., home on April 15, 2007, as stated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Connecticut.

While the victims were not formally named, previous convictions of Barabas’ co-conspirators for the same crime suggest that the victims were philanthropist Anne Bass and her partner Julian Lethbridge, as reported by The New Haven Register, The Middletown Press, and The News-Times. The guilty plea comes 17 years after the incident, during which Barabas and his accomplices restrained and blindfolded Bass and Lethbridge, administering a substance they claimed was a lethal virus, according to the DOJ.

Authorities revealed that on the night of the crime, Michael N. Kennedy drove Barabas, Emmanuel Nicolescu, and Alexandru Nicolescu to a location near the scene of the invasion.