A 71 year-old man and his 36 year-old roommate are going to prison for hiring a 6-foot-5 inch, 350 lbs thug to strong-arm their building manager. You may recall that last year police arrested elderly architect Ekkehart Schwarz and his roommate Vassileios Giamagas, after they threatened "death and torture," against the manager when he tried to collect $265,000 in back rent on their unfinished restaurant on West Third Street. They forced him at gunpoint to sign a waiver excusing them from the rent; later, they kidnapped him and threatened him with fake guns, pliers, a screwdriver, and forced sodomy from "a giant guy with an Eastern European accent."

They also forced him to sign blank checks for them, one of which they cashed for $25,000! Giamagas, who bragged about being a fratricidal child-slaughtering Chechen mercenary with mob ties, faces 11-15 years in prison. Schwarz faces 8-15, and all three men could be deported.