Acroplex
01-02-2004, 05:26 PM
Woman accused of ordering hit on husband goes to court; he wants her home
By SCOTT FLANDER
flander@phillynews.com
IT ALL STARTED, say those who know the family, that day when "Tula" Koutsoubos took her husband aside and said, We're getting old. It's time to start distributing some of the wealth to the children.
Particularly the Greek diner the elderly couple owned in Philly's Fairmount section. Tula wanted that turned over to their daughter, Elaine, who had three kids and could have used the financial security.
But Evangelos "Angelo" Koutsoubos wasn't interested. He didn't feel it was time yet.
"When I die," he said, "they can get everything."
Tula wouldn't give in. Neither would he.
And so began an epic battle between the two that became so crazy, so contentious, that it recently boiled into the realm of the unbelievable.
Tula - this little old lady from the diner, sweet-faced, 76-year-old Tula - tried to arrange to have a hit man kill her husband.
At least, that's what the cops say. Angelo, who's 82, doesn't believe a word of it. And he can't wait to bail her out of jail.
The story doesn't end there. Elaine Koutsoubos-Papaioannou, the daughter, has been arrested for allegedly threatening to kill a cook who worked at the family diner. He was the one who alerted cops to the alleged murder plot.
There's more. Thirteen years ago, the couple's son was killed in an unsolved homicide. And now, cops want to know if there's a connection.
The Koutsoubos family is well-known in Philadelphia's Greek community. People are closely following the case, which continues with Tula's preliminary hearing today.
And those who know the family are shaking their heads over how a battle between a husband and a wife could have escalated this far.
"It was not a happy home," said a woman who knows the family. "They didn't enjoy the money they had."
The Greek immigrants went on vacations in Mexico, and traveled back to Athens, where they have a modest home, but their relationship had long been one of mutual tolerance rather than love.
That tolerance ended when Angelo refused to give up control of the Art Museum Restaurant and Pizzeria, at 24th Street and Fairmount Avenue.
Things started happening pretty quickly after that, say those who know the family.
The couple split up, and headed for divorce court. Each tried to keep the other away from the restaurant, but it was Tula who got the upper hand, obtaining a restraining order preventing Angelo from coming there.
About the same time, Elaine split up with her own husband, and mother and daughter joined forces to get control of the restaurant. Tula moved out of the family house in Clementon, N.J., and into the apartments over the diner, where Elaine lived with her kids.
Then, say those who know the family, Tula took matters a step further, traveling to Athens to withdraw a large amount of money from the family's bank account. Police say it was $150,000.
Now, it was war.
Still, Angelo didn't want a divorce. He begged Tula not to leave him, and sent her flowers, and poems he had written.
Was this out of love, or simply because he didn't want to give up control of the restaurant and the money?
Those who know the family lean toward the second possibility.
"He's very tight with money," said one woman who knows the family. "Angelo wanted control of everything."
He was sometimes willing to help out his children financially. But there was a price.
"He would help, but there always had to be a struggle," said the woman. "It had to be by his conditions, his rules."
Tula was by no means the easiest person to live with, either.
Although she had a pleasant persona with her customers, behind the scenes, she could suddenly turn mean, say several people who know her.
"She was an angry person," said one woman. "She would stab you in the back."
An older member of the Greek community put the couple's relationship this way: "One deserves the other."
Angelo finally agreed to a divorce, and a Family Court judge began the process of dividing the couple's marital assets, according to sources.
But there was a problem. Tula wouldn't give the court control of some of those assets - including the money she retrieved from Athens. Simply put, Tula didn't want Angelo to get the money, or the restaurant. And so, say police sources, she came up with a plan to make sure that would never happen.
Late last month, Tula approached a cook at the restaurant and asked him to help find a hit man who would kill Angelo. She already knew how much she wanted to pay for the job, cops say: $10,000.
The cook went to the police, who set up a sting. Tula was contacted and told to meet the hit man at the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul, on the Ben Franklin Parkway.
The price would be higher - $12,000. She was to bring a $3,000 down payment and a photo of her husband.
On Dec. 1, Tula met the detective outside the cathedral. She gave him an envelope with the photo, a $3,000 down payment and a $500 "bonus" for doing a good job, police say.
She told the "hit man" that after he killed Angelo, to be sure to get the keys to his 1994 Honda.
According to police sources, Angelo kept some financial documents stashed in his car, and Tula wanted those.
Once Tula handed over the money, the detective identified himself and arrested her. She was charged with conspiracy to commit murder, and is being held on $200,000 bail.
But was Tula crazy for the money, or just a little crazy?
Some who know the Koutsoubos family say that in recent years, Tula has been "missing things," forgetting things, that she's had difficulty with the stress of running the restaurant and dealing with the divorce.
"She don't know what she's doing," said one man who knows the family well. "She's not got everything there."
Cops say that Elaine, however, knew exactly what she was doing when she told the cook that he'd be killed if he testified against Tula. She first made the threat at the restaurant, and later called the cook's wife and made the same threat, police say.
Elaine, who was arrested Dec. 10, was charged with intimidating witnesses, retaliation and making terroristic threats.
Some of those who know the family say they find it hard to believe that Tula had anything to do with the death of her son, Peter.
Still, authorities say that as a result of the new allegations, they're reopening the 1990 case.
Peter, who was born in Greece and came to the United States as a boy, returned to Athens in the 1980s to run a fast-food restaurant, according to those who know the family.
For many years, Tula and Angelo had run a diner in Center City, but they sold that to open the Fairmount Avenue restaurant in 1990. Peter came back to Philly for three months to help them get started.
One night - three days before he was to return to Greece - he left Elaine's apartment over the restaurant and disappeared.
Police were called, and they found Elaine's car - which Peter had been driving - near the Delaware River in Tinicum Township, Delaware County.
The family hired a private detective to find Peter. Rumors swirled about what might have happened to him, but no one really knew.
A year later, Peter's body washed up on a river bank, not far from where the car had been found, according to Jackson M. Stewart Jr., chief deputy district attorney in Delaware County.
An autopsy revealed that it was a homicide, though the exact cause of death couldn't be determined, Stewart said. The murder was never solved.
Stewart said authorities have no evidence to suggest that Peter's death is connected with the allegations against Tula Koutsoubos. But it makes sense to check it out.
"We want to make sure every base has been covered," he said.
Angelo, meanwhile, would like nothing better than to bail Tula out of jail, says Angelo's divorce lawyer, Scott Orloff.
First of all, Angelo dismisses the attempted murder allegations against his wife.
"He chooses not to believe it," said Orloff.
On the other hand, Angelo is confused by what he's hearing in the media, said Orloff.
Tula has various health problems, and Angelo is worried what will happen to her in jail, Orloff said.
"He's concerned she's not going to make it in there," he said. "What's it going to do to her emotionally, physically and mentally? He feels it's going to irreparably harm her."
But Angelo's hands are tied. He can't raise money for the bail until Tula turns over control of the couple's marital assets to the court.
Orloff said Angelo still hopes there won't be a divorce.
"My client continues to hold out hope of reconciliation," he said.
By SCOTT FLANDER
flander@phillynews.com
IT ALL STARTED, say those who know the family, that day when "Tula" Koutsoubos took her husband aside and said, We're getting old. It's time to start distributing some of the wealth to the children.
Particularly the Greek diner the elderly couple owned in Philly's Fairmount section. Tula wanted that turned over to their daughter, Elaine, who had three kids and could have used the financial security.
But Evangelos "Angelo" Koutsoubos wasn't interested. He didn't feel it was time yet.
"When I die," he said, "they can get everything."
Tula wouldn't give in. Neither would he.
And so began an epic battle between the two that became so crazy, so contentious, that it recently boiled into the realm of the unbelievable.
Tula - this little old lady from the diner, sweet-faced, 76-year-old Tula - tried to arrange to have a hit man kill her husband.
At least, that's what the cops say. Angelo, who's 82, doesn't believe a word of it. And he can't wait to bail her out of jail.
The story doesn't end there. Elaine Koutsoubos-Papaioannou, the daughter, has been arrested for allegedly threatening to kill a cook who worked at the family diner. He was the one who alerted cops to the alleged murder plot.
There's more. Thirteen years ago, the couple's son was killed in an unsolved homicide. And now, cops want to know if there's a connection.
The Koutsoubos family is well-known in Philadelphia's Greek community. People are closely following the case, which continues with Tula's preliminary hearing today.
And those who know the family are shaking their heads over how a battle between a husband and a wife could have escalated this far.
"It was not a happy home," said a woman who knows the family. "They didn't enjoy the money they had."
The Greek immigrants went on vacations in Mexico, and traveled back to Athens, where they have a modest home, but their relationship had long been one of mutual tolerance rather than love.
That tolerance ended when Angelo refused to give up control of the Art Museum Restaurant and Pizzeria, at 24th Street and Fairmount Avenue.
Things started happening pretty quickly after that, say those who know the family.
The couple split up, and headed for divorce court. Each tried to keep the other away from the restaurant, but it was Tula who got the upper hand, obtaining a restraining order preventing Angelo from coming there.
About the same time, Elaine split up with her own husband, and mother and daughter joined forces to get control of the restaurant. Tula moved out of the family house in Clementon, N.J., and into the apartments over the diner, where Elaine lived with her kids.
Then, say those who know the family, Tula took matters a step further, traveling to Athens to withdraw a large amount of money from the family's bank account. Police say it was $150,000.
Now, it was war.
Still, Angelo didn't want a divorce. He begged Tula not to leave him, and sent her flowers, and poems he had written.
Was this out of love, or simply because he didn't want to give up control of the restaurant and the money?
Those who know the family lean toward the second possibility.
"He's very tight with money," said one woman who knows the family. "Angelo wanted control of everything."
He was sometimes willing to help out his children financially. But there was a price.
"He would help, but there always had to be a struggle," said the woman. "It had to be by his conditions, his rules."
Tula was by no means the easiest person to live with, either.
Although she had a pleasant persona with her customers, behind the scenes, she could suddenly turn mean, say several people who know her.
"She was an angry person," said one woman. "She would stab you in the back."
An older member of the Greek community put the couple's relationship this way: "One deserves the other."
Angelo finally agreed to a divorce, and a Family Court judge began the process of dividing the couple's marital assets, according to sources.
But there was a problem. Tula wouldn't give the court control of some of those assets - including the money she retrieved from Athens. Simply put, Tula didn't want Angelo to get the money, or the restaurant. And so, say police sources, she came up with a plan to make sure that would never happen.
Late last month, Tula approached a cook at the restaurant and asked him to help find a hit man who would kill Angelo. She already knew how much she wanted to pay for the job, cops say: $10,000.
The cook went to the police, who set up a sting. Tula was contacted and told to meet the hit man at the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul, on the Ben Franklin Parkway.
The price would be higher - $12,000. She was to bring a $3,000 down payment and a photo of her husband.
On Dec. 1, Tula met the detective outside the cathedral. She gave him an envelope with the photo, a $3,000 down payment and a $500 "bonus" for doing a good job, police say.
She told the "hit man" that after he killed Angelo, to be sure to get the keys to his 1994 Honda.
According to police sources, Angelo kept some financial documents stashed in his car, and Tula wanted those.
Once Tula handed over the money, the detective identified himself and arrested her. She was charged with conspiracy to commit murder, and is being held on $200,000 bail.
But was Tula crazy for the money, or just a little crazy?
Some who know the Koutsoubos family say that in recent years, Tula has been "missing things," forgetting things, that she's had difficulty with the stress of running the restaurant and dealing with the divorce.
"She don't know what she's doing," said one man who knows the family well. "She's not got everything there."
Cops say that Elaine, however, knew exactly what she was doing when she told the cook that he'd be killed if he testified against Tula. She first made the threat at the restaurant, and later called the cook's wife and made the same threat, police say.
Elaine, who was arrested Dec. 10, was charged with intimidating witnesses, retaliation and making terroristic threats.
Some of those who know the family say they find it hard to believe that Tula had anything to do with the death of her son, Peter.
Still, authorities say that as a result of the new allegations, they're reopening the 1990 case.
Peter, who was born in Greece and came to the United States as a boy, returned to Athens in the 1980s to run a fast-food restaurant, according to those who know the family.
For many years, Tula and Angelo had run a diner in Center City, but they sold that to open the Fairmount Avenue restaurant in 1990. Peter came back to Philly for three months to help them get started.
One night - three days before he was to return to Greece - he left Elaine's apartment over the restaurant and disappeared.
Police were called, and they found Elaine's car - which Peter had been driving - near the Delaware River in Tinicum Township, Delaware County.
The family hired a private detective to find Peter. Rumors swirled about what might have happened to him, but no one really knew.
A year later, Peter's body washed up on a river bank, not far from where the car had been found, according to Jackson M. Stewart Jr., chief deputy district attorney in Delaware County.
An autopsy revealed that it was a homicide, though the exact cause of death couldn't be determined, Stewart said. The murder was never solved.
Stewart said authorities have no evidence to suggest that Peter's death is connected with the allegations against Tula Koutsoubos. But it makes sense to check it out.
"We want to make sure every base has been covered," he said.
Angelo, meanwhile, would like nothing better than to bail Tula out of jail, says Angelo's divorce lawyer, Scott Orloff.
First of all, Angelo dismisses the attempted murder allegations against his wife.
"He chooses not to believe it," said Orloff.
On the other hand, Angelo is confused by what he's hearing in the media, said Orloff.
Tula has various health problems, and Angelo is worried what will happen to her in jail, Orloff said.
"He's concerned she's not going to make it in there," he said. "What's it going to do to her emotionally, physically and mentally? He feels it's going to irreparably harm her."
But Angelo's hands are tied. He can't raise money for the bail until Tula turns over control of the couple's marital assets to the court.
Orloff said Angelo still hopes there won't be a divorce.
"My client continues to hold out hope of reconciliation," he said.