GLAAD Community News
2017-03-07 21:03:05 UTC
One of the University of Rochester students abducted and
tortured after showing up to what he thought was a house party
has spoken out about his 40 hours of horror.
Nicholas Kollias and a fellow football player friend were
seniors at the school when they were lured to an upstate home,
beaten, shot and sexually assaulted one Saturday morning in
early December 2015.
I didn't think I was going to make it until (that) Monday,
Kollias, 23, told the Chicago Tribune, speaking at length on the
ordeal for the first time.
He said he still has a rod in his leg and a bullet in his calf
from his hours on a bathroom floor and in a room with an
inflatable mattress, where he was held until a SWAT team found
and rescued him the following night.
Among methods of torture, which went along with the theft of his
bank cards and car, were threats to chop off his toes, and being
doused with lighter fluid.
Kollias spent 25 days in the hospital, and had lost four pints
of blood, roughly 40% in the average human body, according to
the Tribune.
Nine people have been convicted of crimes in the weekend
imprisonment of Kollias, including five who pleaded guilty to
kidnapping and four who were sentenced last year.
Lydell Strickland, 26, was given 155 years in prison in December
for planning the attack as well as charges including robbery,
assault and sex abuse.
The University of Rochester said last year that the abductions
may have stemmed from mistaken identity.
Sources told the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle that the
attackers may have been trying to retaliate against a friend of
Kollias's friend who had allegedly lured drug dealers to an
apartment and robbed them.
Kollias, who has since graduated and moved back to the Chicago
area, has also filed a $10 million suit against those convicted
of attacking him, he told the Tribune.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/u-rochester-abduction-
victim-describes-weekend-torture-article-1.2972534
tortured after showing up to what he thought was a house party
has spoken out about his 40 hours of horror.
Nicholas Kollias and a fellow football player friend were
seniors at the school when they were lured to an upstate home,
beaten, shot and sexually assaulted one Saturday morning in
early December 2015.
I didn't think I was going to make it until (that) Monday,
Kollias, 23, told the Chicago Tribune, speaking at length on the
ordeal for the first time.
He said he still has a rod in his leg and a bullet in his calf
from his hours on a bathroom floor and in a room with an
inflatable mattress, where he was held until a SWAT team found
and rescued him the following night.
Among methods of torture, which went along with the theft of his
bank cards and car, were threats to chop off his toes, and being
doused with lighter fluid.
Kollias spent 25 days in the hospital, and had lost four pints
of blood, roughly 40% in the average human body, according to
the Tribune.
Nine people have been convicted of crimes in the weekend
imprisonment of Kollias, including five who pleaded guilty to
kidnapping and four who were sentenced last year.
Lydell Strickland, 26, was given 155 years in prison in December
for planning the attack as well as charges including robbery,
assault and sex abuse.
The University of Rochester said last year that the abductions
may have stemmed from mistaken identity.
Sources told the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle that the
attackers may have been trying to retaliate against a friend of
Kollias's friend who had allegedly lured drug dealers to an
apartment and robbed them.
Kollias, who has since graduated and moved back to the Chicago
area, has also filed a $10 million suit against those convicted
of attacking him, he told the Tribune.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/u-rochester-abduction-
victim-describes-weekend-torture-article-1.2972534