TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Federal Trial Opens In 'Dream' Turned 'Family Tragedy'

ADVERTISEMENT

By ELAINE SILVESTRINI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 4, 2008

Updated: 11/04/2008 05:38 pm

TAMPA - The first time he was attacked, Grigori Komissarchuk had gone to the Home Depot to buy a fan.

As he approached his car, "Somebody hit me on the head and I fall to the ground," he recalled in his thick Russian accent. "They beat me up very strongly: face, stomach, bones, everything. Blood was running from my mouth and my nose. After this, I remember nothing."

Komissarchuk's son-in-law, Alex Shevgart, is standing trial, accused of orchestrating attacks on his wife's parents because they stopped giving him money after a series of failed businesses.

Komissarchuk was the first prosecution witness today, testifying in detail about his relationship with his son-in-law, three brutal attacks on him and his wife, Galina, and the eventual conclusion that Shevgart was behind them.

The Ukranian immigrant became emotional when describing his hospitalization after the first attack, weeping to the point that the judge called a recess.

"My condition was very bad," he said. "I was very screaming a lot with doctors around me all the time."

The couple suffered fractured skulls in the attacks in Brooklyn, N.Y., and Sarasota in 2006 and 2007, which often involved the use of a hammer, Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Porcelli said this morning.

He described the story as "the American dream unfortunately turning into a family tragedy."

Shevgart's attorney, Stephen J. Stanley, told jurors in opening statements that the prosecution will not be able to prove its case against the defendant. "The evidence in this case is going to be inconclusive, inconsistent and untrustworthy," Stanley said. "There was another theory in this case: The Italian mob was after Mr. Komissarchuk because of a lawsuit involving his son."

Porcelli told jurors that they will hear recordings of conversations between Shevgart and his father-in-law and between Shevgart and two other conspirators who have pleaded guilty, Larik Cholak and Sergey Zub.

In one conversation, after Grigori Komissarchuk concluded Shevgart was responsible, he telephoned Shevgart and said, "'I think you know the people that are attacking us,'" Porcelli said. "The defendant said maybe he did."

That was the last conversation the two ever had, Porcelli said.

The Komissarchuks moved to the United States from the Ukraine in 1978 with their three children to pursue the American dream, Porcelli said. Grigori Komissarchuk was a shoemaker who bought his own business. In New York, he invested in city taxi medallions, or taxi licenses, which are traded like commodities. He now owns 14 of the medallions, worth $550,000 each.

When his daughter, Amelia, married Shevgart, he gave the couple money to purchase a bread truck route, but that business failed after about a year, and Shevgart sold it, as he would a series of businesses he acquired with the help of money from his in-laws, Porcelli said.

The businesses included a Dairy Queen, a shoe store, a shoe and clothing store, another bread truck route and others. Shevgart moved to Sarasota, and after losing a business, he moved his wife and two children into a Sarasota house owned by the Komissarchuks without their permission, Porcelli said. The Komissarchucks were unhappy about the situation, and they refused repeated demands by the Shevgarts to give them hundreds of thousands of dollars, Porcelli said.

They lived there six years rent-free until the exasperated Komissarchuks gave them $100,000 in 2006 toward buying their own home.

Komissarchuk testified this morning that he kept giving money to Shevgart because he didn't feel he had a choice, and that he had to help his grandchildren.

But once, when his daughter came to their Brooklyn home and demanded $200,000, mother and daughter got into such a fight that their daughter choked her mother, he testified. They didn't talk for months after that, but the Komissarchuks ultimately relented and gave them the money to buy the house, Komissarchuk testified.

Reporter Elaine Silvestrini can be reached at (813) 259-7837 or esilvestrini@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT