For much of his life, Nicholas Kollias played the role of the ideal son with a sheltered upbringing in suburban Chicago.
The Northbrook native lettered in three sports at Glenbrook North High School. After years of lessons, he’d become a skilled classical pianist. And in 2012, the middle child of a self-made businessman became the first in his family to attend college.
Despite his parents’ misgivings, Kollias chose an out-of-state school, enrolling as a business student at the University of Rochester in New York, which has a renowned music program and where he could play Division III football.
Kollias was crushed when an knee injury sidelined him for senior season, but things were still looking up. He was on target to graduate in a few months, and he’d landed an internship with a wealth management company.
But in December 2015, Kollias’ life and future were upended after a seemingly insignificant decision to tag along with a teammate who got invited to a gathering by a young woman. Over the next 40 hours, Kollias was held against his will, became the subject of a large-scale manhunt and was beaten, shot, sexually assaulted and tortured.
"I’ve been at the District Attorney’s office six years, four in the violent felony bureau," Monroe County, N.Y., assistant district attorney Christine Callanan said. "The facts and circumstances of this case are unlike anything I have seen and unlike anything I will ever see again."
Kidnap, torture survivor stays focused on rehab and the future
Nicholas Kollias survived being kidnapped and tortured in 2015 in Rochester, NY, during which he was shot and his leg was severely damaged. He is now focused on his physical therapy and his future. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)
Nicholas Kollias survived being kidnapped and tortured in 2015 in Rochester, NY, during which he was shot and his leg was severely damaged. He is now focused on his physical therapy and his future. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)
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Masked men with weapons
On Dec. 4, 2015, Kollias had just left his internship in Rochester and met up with a college friend for the evening.
The friend had been exchanging Facebook messages with a young woman and asked if Kollias wanted to meet up with her and her friend. After midnight, the two women arrived and persuaded Kollias and his friend to accompany them to their place. (The friend, who lives in the Naperville area, declined to comment and asked not to be named.)
Having heard regular warnings about off-campus crime targeting students, Kollias, now 23, said he generally stuck to the university area. On this night, he disregarded his rule, but then grew increasingly leery as the four drove farther away from campus.
"The neighborhood started turning into kind of a bad neighborhood, and that’s when I first got kind of concerned and was like ‘This is probably not good,’ " Kollias said. "By the time that thought went through my head, we pulled up to the house."
The two-story, peach-colored bungalow seemed inviting enough, though Kollias said he was overcome by a strong odor of urine when they went inside. They had just settled into a leather couch in the living room when the lights suddenly went out and a group of men wearing masks and holding guns, bats and knives burst in and surrounded them.
"My first instinct is to get out of there, so I just get up and start running toward the door, and I got like halfway and next thing I know I’m on the ground," Kollias recalled.
One of the men shot Kollias in his left leg with a .22-caliber rifle. He didn’t know it at the time, but the bullet shattered his femur in the same leg on which he’d had surgery two months before to repair his torn ACL.
Somehow, Kollias willed himself to his feet and hobbled to the front door, but the women he’d arrived with held the door shut. The next thing he remembers, he was clubbed over the head and dragged into the bathroom.
"I was just like, ‘What’s going on?’ " said Kollias, who is speaking publicly at length for the first time about the ordeal. "’Who are these people?’"
University of Rochester football Provided by Nicholas Kollias
Kidnapping and torture victim Nicholas Kollias is flanked by University of Rochester football teammates Zechariah TreDenick, left, and James Barrett during the Yellowjackets’ 2013 season.
Kidnapping and torture victim Nicholas Kollias is flanked by University of Rochester football teammates Zechariah TreDenick, left, and James Barrett during the Yellowjackets’ 2013 season.
(Provided by Nicholas Kollias)
Broken bones, a bloodied bathtub
Beaten and bewildered, Kollias sat on the bathroom floor with his friend, not knowing their whereabouts or why they were targeted.
The masked men jabbed the other victim in the eye with a long fluorescent light bulb and broke a bulb over Kollias’ head. The captors doused the men in lighter fluid and threatened to light them on fire and to disfigure them permanently.
"They ran knives between their toes and used some kind of animal nail trimmer to threaten to cut off their toes," said Callanan, the prosecutor in Rochester.
The assailants also employed acts of sexual degradation, according to court documents.
By early Saturday morning, their captors began to clean up the house, sopping up blood in the bathroom and putting Kollias, who was still profusely bleeding from his bullet wound and a gash to the head, in the shower.
"I was sitting there for 30 minutes, just like the whole entire tub is red with blood everywhere," Kollias recalled.
As he and the other victim were moved to a barren room with an inflatable mattress, Kollias began to ponder his surroundings: the chair in which he sat in the shower, the crutches sitting idly by and the pain medication given to them by one masked man. The captors had nicknames, like "Sky" and "Scrap." Each had a different role, including one man who was almost exclusively their warden and caretaker, according to Kollias and court records.
Despite the torture, Kollias said he felt no physical pain during the ordeal, crediting adrenaline and a survival instinct. He was concerned about how much his head was bleeding, but he said he recalled thinking, at first: "’I’m not going to give up without a fight. I’m not going to close my eyes.’ I was thinking about my family, parents and God. I didn’t want to die and give in to these people."
He also said it was chilling to see how methodical his captors seemed to be.
"They were so organized in the way they conducted themselves and the roles they had. It made me feel like they had done this before and like gotten away it."
Though much of the torture seemed pointless to Kollias, the men forced the men to hand over their bank cards and reveal their PIN numbers, firing a gun near their heads as coercion. They also stole Kollias’ car.
Healing after attack Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune
Nicholas Kollias, right, receives physical therapy from therapist Mike Bruszer, left, at Athletico inside the East Bank Club in Chicago on Feb. 13, 2017. Kollias survived being kidnapped and tortured in 2015 in Rochester, NY, and is still in therapy dealing with the aftermath of the attack.
Nicholas Kollias, right, receives physical therapy from therapist Mike Bruszer, left, at Athletico inside the East Bank Club in Chicago on Feb. 13, 2017. Kollias survived being kidnapped and tortured in 2015 in Rochester, NY, and is still in therapy dealing with the aftermath of the attack.
(Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)
Bright lights, then a rescue
By Sunday night, as the house grew quiet and the two neared 40 hours in captivity, Kollias and the other victim, who were at times bound with duct tape and wire, began to fear the worst.
"I wasn’t very optimistic throughout any of this, about getting out or living, you know?" Kollias said. "I, myself, wanted to continue to fight and not give up and to choose not to die. But, in reality … I didn’t think I was going to make it until Monday."
Then out of the blue, one of the captors who’d been watching over them entered the room, no longer wearing his mask. Without explanation, he began undoing the bindings around Kollias’ legs and hands and told him he was free to go.
Kollias was incredulous. He recalled thinking that his leg was in two pieces and, "I can’t go anywhere."
Seconds later, though, the entire house suddenly lit up. Kollias said at first he thought his abductors were burning down the house. It turned out to be a SWAT team, who had detonated explosive devices to blast their way into the house.
The SWAT team, donning tactical gear and armed with assault rifles, located Kollias and the other victim in the bedroom, now riddled with bullet holes and littered with shell casings, Callanan said.
Later, Kollias learned that relatives and friends had reported the pair missing, and a massive hunt ensued.
Paramedics rushed a naked Kollias into an ambulance as neighbors gathered around the scene. Once he arrived at the hospital, he was comforted by his parents.
"I just remember the first thing my dad said to me was, ‘You’re safe now. You’re all right with us. All the torture and everything is over with now,’" Kollias said. "He just kind of brought everything to ease and settled me down."
Kollias, who said he lost four pints of blood, spent 25 days at the hospital. He hadn’t realized until he was being treated by emergency responders that he had been shot in the other leg at some point, too. He also had shards of glass from the smashed light bulb surgically removed from his eardrum.
Meanwhile, he was juggling interviews with police, fielding phone calls to settle fraudulent purchases on his credit cards and undergoing intensive physical rehabilitation.
SWAT team rescues abducted NY students
Officials say four suspects are in custody in connection with the kidnapping of two University of Rochester students over the weekend. Dec. 7, 2015. (Reuters)
Officials say four suspects are in custody in connection with the kidnapping of two University of Rochester students over the weekend. Dec. 7, 2015. (Reuters)
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Moving on
Within a matter of weeks, authorities had arrested five men and four women in connection with the abduction and torture, all Rochester-area residents in their late teens and 20s.
Five of the defendants pleaded guilty to kidnapping. The other four were taken to trial last year and were all convicted. Their sentences ranged from seven years in prison for each of two women who aided the perpetrators of the torture to 155 years in prison for the man authorities identified as the ringleader.
At trial, Kollias and the other victim testified about the cruel acts they endured. The jury also saw a short video, shot on a phone by one of the suspects, that showed the two victims being beaten and demeaned.
Though the men involved in the grisly case will likely spend the better parts of lives behind bars, Kollias said he was disappointed in the sentences for the female defendants. He has lodged a civil lawsuit seeking $10 million in damages against the nine defendants for assault battery and unlawful imprisonment.
As for what precipitated the abductions, prosecutors point to a robbery that occurred a week before in the other victim’s apartment on campus while he was out of town on Thanksgiving break.
Authorities said another member of the football team arranged to buy marijuana at the apartment, using a spare key he knew was hidden outside. When the dealer arrived with three friends, three other men stormed in, pepper-sprayed the group, beat one of the men with a hammer and took off with four pounds of marijuana. Authorities said the football player, Isaiah Smith, set up the scheme to make it appear he was a victim; he was later convicted of felony robbery and burglary charges and awaits sentencing.
Investigators believe the perpetrators of the abduction and torture targeted the second victim because he lived at that apartment. But they stressed that neither he nor Kollias was connected to the initial robbery, and confirmed Kollias’ account that he was victimized only because he happened to be with his friend that night.
Despite all he went through, Kollias seemingly is putting the pieces back together, though he says he maintains a low profile and he’s less trusting of people and more careful about who he associates with. But he still managed to graduate a semester early and did job interviews from his hospital bed. Now living in Chicago, his job at a financial services firm keeps him busy. With a titanium rod in his left leg and a bullet still lodged in his right calf, he continues his two-days-a-week regimen of physical therapy.
He still finds solace in playing piano, recently recording a rendition of Chopin’s Waltz in A minor for iTunes.
And though his career in football may not have ended on the best terms, he credits the toughness he learned from the sport with helping him through the most difficult time of his life.
"It was kind of like playing football," Kollias said of his recovery, "being an athlete all my life, always being a really self-driven, ambitious person, just not taking no as an answer (and) always willing to better myself and grow from every situation … it’s only going to get better from here."
tbriscoe@chicagotribune.com
Twitter: @_tonybriscoe
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