Cliffview Pilot

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST A nightclub owner from Queens slid into the back seat of an SUV and shot two of his accomplices dead on a Teaneck street, authorities said, in announcing the arrest of 25-year-old Nicholas D. Kiriakakis.

The three had spent most of the night together, and "there was a lot of cellphone traffic between [them]," a source close to the investigation told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. "It might have been a ripoff."

Detectives with Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli's office charged Kirikakis after interviewing him at an NYPD lockup. He's being held on $3 million bail there pending extradition to Bergen County, the prosecutor said Saturday evening.

Molinelli told CLIFFVIEWPILOT.COM that Kiriakakis met with Jonathan Beneduce and Michael Mirasola in Queens late Wednesday and followed their 2007 Ford Explorer to Oakdene Avenue, apparently as part of a drug deal.

After reviewing the victims' cellphone records and learning that Kiriakakis was familiar with the area, an arrest warrant was issued.

New York City Police picked him up, while seizing two simulated handguns, a stun gun, and illegally obtained prescription drugs from his home and at Pearl Nightlife, Inc., a restaurant/bar that Kiriakakis partly owned and managed, the prosecutor said.

"Kiriakakis was interviewed at the 106th precinct of the New York City Police Department by Bergen County detectives and subsequently charged with the murders," Molinelli said. "The investigation is continuing at this time."  

[For details of the killings, go to: Double homicide in Teaneck]

In addition to the two murder and weapons counts, the NYPD charged Kiriakakis with illegal possession of weapons and prescription drugs and with being a fugitive from justice on the Bergen County charges. He is currently being held in the Queens Detention Center awaiting extradition to New Jersey.