Daniel lugo biography pain and gain story

Produced by Chuck Stevenson, Jamie Stolz, Tamara Weitzman and Alicia Tejada

MIAMI -- Zsuzsanna Griga will not at any time forget the kidnapping of accumulate brother, Frank, and his woman, Krisztina Furton in 1995.

"...he dear fast cars, beautiful girls take life," Griga said. "She was very beautiful. She was solitary 23 years old.

My courage breaks when I think suggest what she went through."

Felix Poet, now retired from the Metro-Dade Police homicide department, was probity lead detective on the situation.

"Very handsome couple, they looked like they were made in lieu of each other," Jimenez explained. "Frank was the American success rebel -- an immigrant, came afflict this country with $10 almighty dollar in his pocket and plain millions."

He came from Budapest, Magyarorszag, and found a minimum struggle job in New York Gen.

 

 

"It was like a join up station ... he was solidly the oil, washing cars," Zsuzsanna Griga explained. "What he versed ... should make everyone beaming because he went from nowhere to a millionaire on top own just by using top own resources."

In fewer than 10 years, Frank was living direct an upscale Miami enclave named "Golden Beach" and running shipshape and bristol fashion phone sex line empire.

Settle down was on top of birth world until May 24, 1995.

"I started calling him and perform wouldn't pick up the phone," Zsuzsanna Griga said. "I manner of knew that something truly bad happened then..."

The disappearance forged Frank and Krisztina would junction one of Miami's most open crimes.

But who would long for to kidnap them?

"How did that all go down?" Roberts without being prompted Jimenez.

"So we got a get together that there was a disappointing -- a wealthy couple go off at a tangent was missing out of Happy Beach," he explained. "That was a little strange because dull homicide we need a violation scene.

We need a manner body to respond to. They're few and far between like that which there's actually a missing in my opinion that we would respond. Announce has to be highly doubtful circumstances. And it so instance in this case there was."

At first, the detectives hoped they could find Frank avoid Krisztina alive.

"...the missing European couple had said that they were going to the Land the -- the-- following offering.

So all their friends pretended that the reason they weren't home was because they were in the Bahamas," said Jimenez.

All that changed, though, when unadorned police made a stunning discovery.

"Their Lamborghini was found in fleece abandoned, wooded area far shell of Miami," said Jimenez.

"At that point, we realized that pith bad -- something bad locked away happened to this couple," aforementioned Sam Garafalo.

Garafalo, also retired, counterfeit the case for his hirer, Felix Jimenez.

They are straightaway both CBS News consultants.

"We got information and -- by the same token soon as we got hold down, we ended up going shabby Golden Beach," he said.

"So give orders have a missing Hungarian pair and a Lamborghini," Roberts noted.

"We had more than that. Phenomenon had a next door border ... that had actually bent to the house the ultimate time they were seen restless and they invited her have round and introduced her to unite muscle-bound men that were swing a gold Mercedes and bad them they were going apply to dinner to discuss a- business deal," said Jimenez.

The march would tell police she'd reduce the driver of the gilded Mercedes and knew his name: Danny Lugo.

"Danny was a full muscular guy," said Jimenez.

Police would soon learn that Lugo was a burley ex-convict who confidential served time for running span phony loan scam operation.

Abaft his release, he became primacy manager of a suburban Algonquin health club called Sun Gym.

"This is where the Gym was located. This even-handed what we would call nobleness gang headquarters," said Jimenez.

"Danny Lugo was a Puerto Rican-Cuban newborn from the Bronx," added Garafalo.

"He thought he was smarter elude anybody else," Jimenez added.

"He had a way of disenchanting people to do things they didn't want to do."

 

 

The exhume into Frank and Krisztina's ending continued. Detectives learned Lugo was the leader of a pile made up of drifters pivotal petty thieves who hung carry at the Sun Gym. Authority main partner in crime was another muscle head, Adrian Doorbal.

"Adrian Doorbal was Danny Lugo's protege," said Jimenez.

"Doorbal was inheritance an evil, he reminded easy to get to of just an evil guy," said Garafalo.

"He was unadorned steroid freak. ... He's passion 5 foot 7 tall ray 5 foot 7 wide," Poet continued. "He'd do anything point of view everything that Danny Lugo great him to do."

In May 1995, Danny Lugo and Adrian Doorbal would be at the spirit of one of the heavyhanded notorious crimes in Miami history: a complicated and deadly region that involved kidnapping, money extra murder.

Eighteen years later, the unique was too much for Spirit to resist.

In the obscure "Pain and Gain", Lugo research paper portrayed by Mark Wahlberg. Magnanimity film, released by Paramount Cinema, is part of Viacom, span company affiliated with CBS.

The movie captures what Lugo was about in real life: infatuation with getting rich, says Patty Barrientos, who worked aboard him at a gym.

"He'd inspection.

'I'm gonna have a parcel of money... I wanna fashion, I wanna be somebody realize big...'" said Barrientos.

Asked if appease was money hungry, Barrientos bass Roberts, "Yes."

With the little specie he had, he spent clever lot of it at distinction Solid Gold Strip Club. Enter into was here he began classic affair with a one-time Apartment model-turned exotic dancer named Sabina Petrescu.

"She was a very, truly attractive woman," Jimenez said.

"She fell for Danny and held everything he told her."

Petrescu was another recent immigrant who notion a splash in Miami. She was a finalist in birth Miss Romania contest in 1990, then came to the Combined States to begin a model career. She made it sick with the pages of Penthouse periodical, but filled the rest pass judgment on her time as an far-out dancer.

"Danny treated her well ...

he gave her a BMW," said Jimenez.

Petrescu would play straight crucial role as police prolonged gathering more evidence connecting Lugo and Doorbal to the loss of Frank and Krisztina.

"We suppress the housekeeper who was along with at the home when class -- the musclemen were almost. We have the next entree neighbor. We show them photographs.

They make identification. So incredulity have a lot to lighten up on," said Jimenez.

Search warrants were executed for the cover of Lugo and Doorbal ray their associates.

"I mean we challenging so many cops it wasn't even funny," said Garafalo.

"... suppose fact we mobilized right increase this park," Jimenez pointed simple.

Police quickly hit pay muck in the apartment of Danny Lugo's girlfriend.

"There was whatsoever damning evidence there ... bloodied clothing belonging to Frank settle down Krisztina, there was the carry off kit -- a case comprise duct tape ...guns, [stun guns], handcuffs -- there was good much evidence in that apartment," said Jimenez.

Soon Adrian Doorbal was in custody and refused transmit talk to police.

"The main insult that we're after, Danny Lugo, is nowhere to be found," said Jimenez.

Danny Lugo had obtain them the slip.

THE SEARCH Lead to DANNY LUGO

"This case was tumult over the news," retired assassination detective Felix Jimenez told Metropolis Roberts.

"Miami was riveted despite the fact that to this attractive Hungarian unite ... you know, this terrified Lamborghini found in the Swampland and that they're missing celebrated they continue to be missing."

But detectives had lost their lead suspect, Danny Lugo.

"Lugo's gone, we have a permit for his arrest," Jimenez articulate.

"He's just vanished. We don't know where he is."

They plainspoken have one good lead.

"We esoteric his girlfriend, Sabina Petrescu," articulate Jimenez.

Sabina Petrescu, the magazine model-turned stripper, had quite a nonconformist to tell. She said unit boyfriend wasn't a criminal. Soil told her he was elegant CIA agent.

"Number one, she was smitten with Danny Lugo, endure number two, I think she believed what he was expression -- that he was out CIA operative -- that unwind was working for the U.S.

government in kidnapping people go off at a tangent were dangerous to this country," said Jimenez.

Danny Lugo had positive her he was a nark on a secret mission. Desirable for now, she wouldn't disclose detectives where Lugo was. On the contrary it would be just copperplate matter of time.

In an implausible twist of fate, detectives count on another department at Metro-Dade boys in blue had also been looking disdain Danny Lugo and Adrian Doorbal.

Their case was the unconventional kidnapping of another Miami millionaire. Now, Lugo and Doorbal were front and center of span cases.

The Miami millionaire was Marc Schiller, an accountant.

"He was Argentinean born, grew up front in the U.S., went go up against school, got his CPA commission, he had a medical asking business that did very well," Jimenez explained.

The two crimes would become one huge case -- a case that Judge Alex Ferrer, now TV's "Judge Alex", and Miami-Dade prosecutor Gail Levine would never forget.

"This case was what made me who Uproarious am today, a career prosecutor," said Levine.

"Of all the cases I've tried this is emergency far the most fascinating case," said Ferrer.

Schiller would eventually broadcast police a wild story -- that five months before blue blood the gentry murders of Frank and Krisztina, Schiller himself had been grabbed by a gang.

Bound attend to gagged, he'd be dumped energy a warehouse and held add to more than a month.

"This is a warehouse that was rented by one of nobleness members of the Sun Gym Gang," Jimenez told Roberts type they stood outside the goods.

"They drove the van eradicate Schiller inside into the warehouse."

"Mark Schiller was the perfect sufferer because he was involved import something that was illegal," spoken Levine.

"I think he got hungry and started to get knotty in Medicare fraud," said Jimenez.

Danny Lugo learned about Schiller wean away from Jorge Delgado, who also spurious out at Sun Gym.

Writer and Delgado had been feature business.

"Him and Jorge Delgado in motion a mortgage business together," voiced articulate Jimenez.

But business went badly, leading later Schiller and Delgado difficult a falling out over spiffy tidy up deal. Delgado wanted revenge president told Lugo that Schiller would be an easy mark.

"They chiefly go 'He's not goin' weather the cops ...

he's complicated in Medicare fraud. We'll joggle him down...'" said Ferrer.

So what was the plan?" Roberts without prompting Levine.

"The plan was actually to a great extent simple: kidnap Marc Schiller, possess him write his own redemption and then kill him," she replied.

"Simple as that?" Roberts asked.

"Simple as that," said Levine.

But ective Schiller to shake him prove right was tougher than it looked.

"It would be funny if flat wasn't so tragic ...

by reason of they made these stupid attempts," Ferrer explained. "They would conceal in his yard under duvets like they were some magnanimous of ninja ... waiting progress to him to come out jaunt get the paper at fivesome in the morning and they were gonna kidnap him ... only to be surprised meander cars were coming down distinction street and lighting them transfer with their headlights...

"So mistreatment they're running through yards, tumult 'abort, abort like they're to the rear some secret mission for position government," he continued.

Hollywood could snivel resist this crazy scene. Nobility gang used costumes and farcical book code names like Shipshape and Robin and tried resemble stage an accident to seize Schiller.

"They're waiting for him to drive by to custom this accident," Ferrer explained. "They turned the car off ray as he's driving by they're cranking it and the motor won't start and he goes driving by. So it's identical the Keystone Cops gone bad."

Finally, after multiple attempts, the "gang that couldn't shoot straight" enlisted some serious muscle and all set to take Schiller down exterior a restaurant he owned.

"They waited in a van and they had their biggest gym rats come out," said Levine.

A accomplice, who "48 Hours" agreed catch keep anonymous, worked with significance Sun Gym gang to abduct Schiller.

"I'm a good uncaring person. I just made trig mistake," he told Roberts.

"I was pretty hardcore..." he articulate of his weightlifting.

"At your cap you could bench 475 pounds?" Roberts asked.

"505," he replied.

"505? How big were you?"

"I was like a lean 270 pounds," he said.

"Big guy...

intimidating," Chemist commented.

"Yeah."

He was desperate sponsor money and sometimes worked enviable the Sun Gym. In 1994, Lugo and his gang were offering cash for a small help.

"He told me, 'Look, I gotta talk to support about something,'" the co-conspirator extended. "'... he owes me money'... and 'I need you disparagement come with me and relieve me collect.'"

He agreed, with in November of 1994, perversion his gun.

"So you had your .45 with you?" Roberts asked.

"I always carry my firearm," prohibited said.

"We were parked right there," the man said, standing large Roberts in the parking inadequately, "...

and as soon monkey he came out of coronet restaurant, they saw him middling they said... 'There he go over, there he is...'"

"It was one of those days flat Miami where a storm was coming in," Schiller recalled.

Schiller in your right mind a man who cheated fatality and whose harrowing ordeal in your right mind dramatized by actor Tony Shalhoub in a recent movie.

"Why are you alive?" Roberts on one\'s own initiative Schiller.

"I guess its divine intrusion. I can't explain it," no problem replied.

Schiller's nightmare started just because he was about to purpose for home after work.

"I walked out to my car ... as soon as I release my door ...

I'm grabbed from behind by three guys," said Schiller.

"... and as in the near future as they grabbed him primacy guy grabbed the steering hoop. he was screaming the accomplice told Roberts.

"They just kept puncturing me ... and they esoteric a Taser... and they engaged Tasering [sic] me," said Author.

"They were Tasing him," decency co-conspirator continued.

"He was thunderous ... 'What do you demand, what do you want speed up me, what are you doin?"

"At that point, they dragged me to the van -- a white van," Schiller oral. "They handcuffed my hands remain my back."

"You must have anachronistic terrified," Roberts commented.

"I thought they were gonna take me reprove kill me," he said.

"They reach taped him...

they put ribbon on his mouth ... extremity we took off right practiced of here," said the collaborator.

"When we got to class warehouse," said Schiller, "they callinged the boss."

The boss was Danny Lugo, the same man outburst the center of the Krisztina Furton-Frank Griga murder case.

"... be made aware him, 'The eagle has landed.' I guess I was authority eagle," said Schiller.

"When I consider ...

Schiller was sitting effort the chair ... he was taped up -- hands bid legs ... and they were beating on him," the adscititious told Roberts.

Schiller was tortured night and day. Sometimes, it was with fire.

"Doorbal would yell, 'Fire! Fire!' however real sick," Schiller said. "And he would burn me, paying attention know, burn my skin ...

and then he'd do that again ... and he was laughing so hard he was crying."

Other times, they played Indigen roulette.

"They would place a big guns to his head, they would take a revolver and revolve it and pull the trigger," Jimenez explained. "For the leading couple weeks, he wasn't much allowed to use the room.

He would have to have a and defecate on himself."

But description worst was yet to accommodate.

"At this point they verbal me, 'Well if you don't give us a list fall foul of everything you have ... we're gonna bring your wife spare time here and rape her grip front of you," said Schiller.

Schiller says he was allowed pile-up make one phone call.

Forbidden called his family, telling circlet wife to take their glimmer young children and flee communication Colombia. She chose not add up to call the police.

Asked ground she didn't she call the law, Schiller told Roberts, "I don't know. I think at consider it point, it was prudent watchword a long way to."

And for some inexplicable goal, none of Schiller's employees, assembly or extended family raised nobility alarm.

With his family safe and sound out of the country, Author was still suffering. Finally, character daily torture was too ostentatious. He gave up, giving righteousness gang everything.

"I signed. They pick up me my death sentence," oral Schiller.

"He was signing over all, including his life," Levine oral. "It was $1.2 million subtract cash and assets and clever $2 million life insurance policy."

"And pretty soon they esoteric everything the man owned.

They moved into his house, they changed the pool contract fulfil their name. They were progress there ... and partying locked in his home," Ferrer explained. "And they were taking some assess the furniture they liked jaunt putting it into their paltry apartments, wearing his jewelry, purposeful his Dodge Viper, and Mercedes ...

and just fundamentally living off his money. ... Well, at that point, on your toes can't let the guy subsist ... so they decide he's gotta go."

Marc Schiller's Harrowing Ordeal

Having forced him to sign overtake his assets, the Sun Gym gang, led by Danny Lugo, was partying in Marc Schiller's house. In the Hollywood discourse, "Pain and Gain", Mark Wahlberg's character depicts the depravity.

"They were living in the house.

Break off my house," Schiller told Metropolis Roberts.

Despite his cooperation, Writer still remained chained like set animal in the Miami storehouse.

"Schiller was tied to spruce up pipe in a very stumpy bathroom. That's where he burnt out the next 30 days, was handcuffed to that pipe," badger homicide Felix Jimenez explained.

The capitalist and father was living remark kind of a hell dependent with a Third World prison -- complete with racial slurs.

"They just told me, 'We got a matzo ball' ..." thought Schiller.

"What does that mean?" Buccaneer asked.

"I guess they were referring to the fact I was Jewish," he replied.

Schiller can't leave out of considerat the sick soundtrack that came with his daily beatings.

"They, Distracted mean this whole time they were laughing uncontrollably.

To them it was just a cold game," he said.

"While they were beating you?" Roberts asked.

"Yeah."

"Did any of your captors agricultural show you any kindness?"

"Yeah, the reproach that was at night give, because they stopped feeding me," Schiller explained. "I was devouring. I hadn't eaten for aspire three days.

He brought holder a can of a - canned ravioli, which I confidential to eat with my hands."

That would be one of honesty last meals the Sun Gym gang intended for Schiller give permission have as Lugo put diadem final plan into action.

"They teamwork him alcohol to drink. Obtain him all drunk," said Aficionado Alex Ferrer.

"They plied you catch alcohol for three straight days" Roberts noted to Schiller.

"It was probably more than that, niggardly was probably like five days," he said.

"And then what exact they do?"

"The last day?

... They set me in spick chair, and they give concentrated this concoction, a drink," articulate Schiller.

"Liquor, tequila, vodka and gave him sleeping pills. And long run he passed out," said Jimenez.

Schiller was unconscious.

"They put him observe his Toyota 4Runner, his SUV," said Ferrer.

"And they host the car into a become calm pole. Doorbal was driving," Poet explained. "... and then impregnate the car with gasoline stall set it on fire. Direct that was their attempt regarding kill him. They backed ditch about a block away go to see watch the car as phase in was engulfed in flames."

"The perturb is, they don't buckle him in," Ferrer explained.

"The fusillade revive him enough that yes stumbles out of the motor vehicle and towards the road."

The incomplete Sun Gym gang moved compact to finish off Marc Schiller.

"... and they see this insult that they just lit rounded fire standing by the rendering of the road and they yell, 'Run him over, dart him over,'" said Ferrer.

"They stab forward and they try dealings run him over, they wayward adrift.

But then they were recurring to back over him opinion then run over him again," said Jimenez.

"And they get put away to their place, and they go, 'You think we fasten him?' They're looking at representation dent of the car, spell they say, 'I don't comprehend it's not a big unquestionable, yeah but we ran him over, and we backed handing over him, I mean he ought to be dead,'" Ferrer continued.

Asked what he remembered next, Author told Roberts, "Waking up nickname a hospital."

It would be months before Schiller could grasp magnanimity full horror of how crystalclear ended up half dead convenient Jackson Memorial, Miami's top thunderbolt center.

"I was in a faint when they picked me up," he told Roberts.

In the bedevilled haze of the intensive trouble unit -- burned and inexperienced, his pelvis broken -- Marc Schiller tried to tell circlet story of abduction and rack to nurses, doctors -- story who might listen.

"Yeah, I pick up 'em I was kidnapped, boss they go, 'No no, restore confidence were in a bad accident,'" he said.

"And I hoof it, 'No, no, no, no. Uproarious was kidnapped. And they steady blew it off."

"How many era did you insist you locked away been kidnapped?" Roberts asked.

"About iii and then I gave up," said Schiller.

"He's trying to authority the nurse to give him a phone, because he says he was kidnapped. And she just keeps going, 'No tell what to do weren't kidnapped, you were intoxicated, you hit a pole," supposed Ferrer.

"I knew they weren't gonna do anything,"said Schiller.

"Finally, she gives him the phone.

He calls his lawyer," said Ferrer.

 

 

From there, it took just moments to figure out Marc Author needed a lot more already just a lawyer.

But even Utter Du Bois, with 50 adulthood of experience as a ormal investigator, had never heard anything quite like Schiller's story.

"The hail was unusual because the composition was so bizarre," said Armour Bois.

Du Bois met Schiller attend to believed his story.

Soon, both men realized

Schiller had diversity even bigger problem: Lugo trip Delgado were intent on coating the job.

"I was a hearing duck," said Schiller.

"Did you consternation that Delgado and Lugo were going to come to dispensary to finish the job?" Evangelist asked.

"Yeah. And my sister was there and my brother.

Near we were all in on the rocks panic," he said.

"And Crazed said, 'The easy answer task for you to get loss of the hospital," said Buffer Bois.

"Why didn't either of order about go to the police make certain that point?" Roberts asked.

"Well ... we couldn't wait for distinction police," Du Bois replied.

Schiller's fille ripped the medical tubes carry too far his arms.

"And the doctor articulated, 'You can't move him.

He's in critical condition,'" said Schiller.

Schiller's brother and sister booked eminence air ambulance, grabbed their monk and bolted out of Algonquin, heading north -- not orderly minute too soon.

"We left try to be like 8 o'clock in the crack of dawn. I guess they came afterwards 10 to look for uppermost, to kill us all, chic three of us," said Schiller.

"Delgado and Lugo?" Roberts asked.

"Yeah, promote to the hospital," he replied.

The consequential desperate Sun Gym gang challenging tracked down their former strike.

"As they're walking the halls of Jackson Memorial Hospital anticipating for him, he's on place air ambulance flight to Additional York," said Ferrer.

A thousand miles from Miami, Marc Schiller, at once supported by his family, began to heal; his body elitist bones fractured.

"First, I can't march and second of all, who knows how many of these people are out there," stylishness said.

Schiller would reunite with rule family in Colombia.

Weeks would pass, and, strangely, despite top ordeal, Schiller did not murder it to police.

"What person gets kidnapped, held for a thirty days, and when he finally gets free, leaves the country humbling doesn't call the police oblige four months?" Ferrer wondered.

"I estimate what's difficult to understand go over the main points why you did not mirror to the police sooner," Gospeler commented to Schiller.

"I did," good taste said.

But according to authorities, site wasn't until April 1995, yoke months after his escape, go off Schiller contacted police.

"'They want cheer up to come to Miami fasten report it,'" Schiller said.

"And I'm like, 'That's not happening.' ... who knows how indefinite of these people are substantiate there. ... I run be converted into them by accident, I'm dead."

"Marc Schiller was asked to comprehend and give testimony under vow four times ... and significant stood up not only honesty prosecutor, but the police, stick to give that testimony four times," said prosecutor Gail Levine.

Prosecutor Levine would eventually lead the inquiry and try the case.

She says Schiller didn't come piece, because he had his insensitive credibility issues due to rulership alleged involvement in Medicare swindling.

"The victim comes from Colombia. He has a lot pressure money, more money than

I would imagine most CPAs layer Miami have," she explained.

"So tail a while, you and Marc decided to go to rectitude police?" Roberts asked Du Bois.

"Yeah," he replied.

But according to Armour Bois and Schiller, when they finally did sit down respect the cops...

"They've never listened dissent all," said Schiller.

"They never went out, never read them their rights, they never asked them a question, they never unchanging said, 'Hello, here I squad.

We're breathin' down your neck,'" said Du Bois.

"They went converge Metro-Dade's top unit that handles just crimes of this quality --just the biggest crimes. Prep added to they just didn't believe him," Ferrer explained.

It had been quint months since Marc Schiller's affliction. The muscle-headed gang had trashed his home and burned try his money.

They were right now hungry for another score.

"If the police had listened register him and investigated, Frank Griga and Krisztina Furton would unquestionably be alive today," said Ferrer.

The Next Victims

By May of 1995, five months after his agonizing escape, the Sun Gym be in a temper had burned through all sharing Marc Schiller's money.

"They'd been horseplay and going to strip clubs, and dropping thousands of pouch on strippers and it was all his money," said Avenue Alex Ferrer.

With Schiller's fortune all in, the gang targeted their adjacent victims: Frank Griga and potentate beautiful girlfriend, Krisztina Furton.

"There was never any pretense.

They knew they were gonna kill them from the outset," said Ferrer.

The millionaire had it resistance.

"Lugo and Doorbal, on loftiness other hand, they wanted abide by live that life," Ferrer continued.

The life Frank Griga had tint on those dial tones refreshing his sex phone empire.

"It made me very proud avoid my kid brother made wedge so big," Zsuzsanna Griga spoken.

"You know we were take hold of poor when we were young..." she continued.

"It's a true rags-to-riches story," said Roberts.

"Yes give it some thought is," Griga replied.

Zsuzsanna had eccentric her brother's love for glory glittery side of the Inhabitant dream.

"Money was there for him to make other people content and to play, to obtain toys," she said.

"His wealth frank afford him certain luxury items," Roberts noted.

"Oh he loved cars, yes, he loved cars," Griga said.

Frank Griga's yellow Lamborghini was legendary.

It was that vehivle that caught the eye neat as a new pin Adrian Doorbal. He'd been put into words about it by a female who once dated Frank Griga.

"And Doorbal's face lights up post says, 'Who has the on edge Lambo?' And she says, 'Oh, don't you know? That's forlorn friend Frank. He's my betray boyfriend," Levine explained.

"And stylishness says, 'How would I notice him?' 'Oh, he comes smash into this dance club Solid Money all the time. Don't order about know him?' Doorbal wasn't wander stupid. Bingo. We got interaction next victim."

Doorbal and Lugo approached Frank Griga with a upset, made-up business scheme and out meeting was set at primacy Solid Gold strip club.

"And they told him that they were investors and that they had a way to trade mark 20-percent return on the dollar," said Levine.

But the real system mirrored the violent abduction adequate Marc Schiller: kidnap and devastation Frank Griga until he autographed over every nickel he abstruse and revealed to the executive where his assets were kept.

"They also needed Krisztina," said Levine.

Asked why, she told Roberts, "They needed Krisztina because if Be direct was missing, Krisztina was trim down to go to the the long arm of the law, 'cause why wouldn't she make available to the police?

Frank was completely legal."

 

 

Lugo and Doorbal, posing as businessmen, lured Be direct and Krisztina back to Doorbal's apartment. Within minutes, Doorbal was strangling Frank in the bedroom.

"Doorbal, not knowing his own hormone strength, either broke his buss or suffocated him," said Levine.

And she screams, and Danny tackles her and injects in trade with horse tranquilizer, which they had basically bought to tranquillize the two of them," uttered Ferrer.

"And it killed her?" Gospeler asked Levine.

"Not initially," she replied.

"They had a dead informer and another one, another myself near death," said Garafalo.

Krisztina Furton, 23, who loved animals, swimming and had dreams commentary being a professional diver, was now shot full of nag 2 tranquilizer. Then, Lugo demanded she give up the access be obsessed with numbers to Frank Griga's bedsit.

"And Doorbal goes and speaks to her and he arrives back and says, his tax words were, 'The bitch crack cold.' They had injected other half with enough horse tranquiller difficulty kill four 1,000-pound horses.

Be proof against now they're both dead -- Frank Griga and Krisztina Furton. And these two guys don't have a dime," Ferrer explained.

Asked what did they do adapt the bodies, Levine told Chemist, "Well, they got creative."

With the help of Jorge Delgado, Doorbal and Lugo stuffed authority bodies of Frank Griga go through a couch and Krisztina Furton into a large cardboard box.

"So here you have these bend in half muscular guys, and on practised Saturday morning, during the mid of the day, it presence like they're moving.

And they're moving boxes and they're stirring a couch. And what they contain are two bodies," supposed Jimenez.

They took the bodies sentry an empty warehouse. The fear was just beginning.

 

 

"So they went to Home Depot and hireling a chain saw. They utilize back and they're gonna relating to this to dismember the mortals.

But the chain saw doesn't have enough power. So these geniuses take this chainsaw retreat to Home Depot and revert it," said Ferrer.

"You're chaffing me," said Roberts.

"... turf they brought that back boss they end up buying operate electric chainsaw," said Garafalo.

"It boggles the mind that they would return a chain saw think about it they were going to groveling to dismember these people," Gospeller told the detectives.

"There's a abundance of things about this travel case that boggle the mind," put into words Jimenez.

But the second chain proverb jammed in Krisztina Furton's comely, thick hair.

That's when Doorbal and Lugo reached for phony ax.

"And they started chopping position body parts. For hours," supposed Levine.

"And they disposed show the torsos in one wherewithal of the county in scrape drums," said Ferrer.

"And they lefthand those hands, heads and riot in buckets at the 31 mile marker," Levine continued.

"... in the Everglades, on rank Alligator Alley that goes get round Ft. Lauderdale to Naples," alleged Ferrer.

"I have never passed become absent-minded mile marker without saying spick little prayer for Frank concentrate on Krisztina," said Levine.

Another gang shareholder would dump Frank Griga's afraid Lamborghini on the side ship the road, in the quaggy Florida Everglades.

Police didn't need top-notch GPS.

The map was fine and it led straight walk the Sun Gym gang.

"And Hilarious remember saying, 'We don't be endowed with a missing persons, we possess a very major homicide,'" articulated Levine.

Soon, Frank's big sister was on a flight to Miami.

"The bodies were found that day," Zsuzsanna Griga told Roberts indifference the day she arrived.

"Sergeant Jimenez and Sgt. Garafalo ... came and picked me extremity at the airport and they explained that they just locked away, you know, they had class bodies. Yes." Griga paused in the past continuing. "Sorry. It's still take hold of hard after 17 years."

As investigators put the pieces alliance, Marc Schiller's kidnap story echoed like thunder.

"And they said, 'I think we got another attachй case just like yours ...

could you come down to Miami?' I said, 'Yeah, yeah. I'll come to Miami,'" said Schiller.

The Sun Gym gang left uncomplicated massive, bloody trail of basis. The last of the tendon heads would be busted just as Danny Lugo's girlfriend, Sabina Petrescu, told police that Lugo was hiding out in the State.

The crimes and the testing would captivate and horrify exchange blows of south Florida.

"It was stressful on every level.

And I've tried serial killers," Ferrer held. "But this case really got to me."

Seeking Justice

In February 1998, almost three years after birth gruesome murders of Frank Griga and Krisztina Furton, Danny Lugo and Adrian Doorbal were backdrop to go on trial.

The case would be career shaping for prosecutor Gail Levine.

"It was so encompassing ...

from dignity day I got the challenge, from the day I in motion investigating it, from the dowry I met the victim's kith and kin, from the day I tumble everybody involved, from the arrogance that I developed with the long arm of the law in investigating the case," she explained.

Lugo's girlfriend, Sabina Petrescu, was granted immunity in exchange stand for her testimony.

She knew the sum of the gang's secrets and petty details of their plots, though she believed they were undercover CIA agents.

"Sabina Petrescu's probably one care the most beautiful women I've ever seen in my life," Levine said, "but she was also one of the heavyhanded naive women I have ingenious met in my life. She was in love with Danny Lugo and she thought be active was her CIA agent."

 

 

With 100 witnesses and thousands see pieces of evidence, the attachй case would drag on for 10 weeks, overseen by Katherine Fernandez Rundle, the State Attorney tend Miami-Dade County.

"...

when you imitate a case that's that freakish and you know people allowed ... what do we gettogether to bring justice to honesty victims of this case, either in their name or dispense their surviving members ," aforementioned Rundle.

Justice was what Marc Writer got this time. He was in control as the prosecution's star witness.

"Walking in and vision Lugo and Doorbal ...

Frenzied realized that -- I was in the driver's seat ... because they never imagined delay I'd be sitting there accusatory them," said Schiller.

The prosecution unweary. Lugo and Doorbal's attorneys chose not to put on smashing case.

"There's sometimes when, although a defense lawyer, you don't have anything to go insecurity.

You just don't. You can't claim misidentification. You can't demand anything," said Ferrer.

"What was picture defense strategy?" Roberts asked Levine.

"Save their lives," she replied.

Jurors wasted little time making their decision. Within hours, they reached their verdict: Daniel Lugo was found guilty of first-degree matricide in the deaths of Krisztina Furton and Frank Griga.

Doorbal was also found guilty and both men were sentenced to decease.

 

 

It's a moment Judge Ferrer will never forget.

"As I was sentencing him, Danny Lugo was standin' there lookin' at make, and his eyes were ... watery. Noel [Adrian] Doorbal, steamy the other hand, he was joking. He was turning swerve to his girlfriend, and conception faces like a goofball," blunt Ferrer.

"You believe the makeshift got it right?" Roberts willingly Levine.

"One-hundred percent," she replied.

"Think low final words were, probably, 'May God have mercy on your soul,'" said Ferrer.

Asked is she's gotten justice, Zsuzsanna Griga try Roberts, "What sort of probity can be done, OK? Reduced of bringing him back?

...

let go was reaching for the paradise on earth, " Griga continued. "And depiction message that he -- be active had out there was ... you can do whatever on your toes want. And this is what these guys -- broke short.

"Were you satisfied with the verdict? Roberts asked Schiller.

"Well, guilty, yea, but -- I don't profess in the -- death penalty," he replied.

"I think self in a jail cell in behalf of the rest of their assured is worse punishment."

The ordeal wasn't over for Marc Schiller. Importation he left the court aft the trial, he was delimited by armed FBI agents who arrested him on charges report to an extensive Medicare scam.

The Medicare fraud that made Writer such an easy target apply for the gang had come confirm to haunt him.

"It was spiffy tidy up sham," Ed Du Bois put into words.

"They never returned the impecuniousness to Marc Schiller. Marc Author did not commit that $14 million worth of Medicare fraud."

In a highly unusual twist, Nimble Alex Ferrer stood up annoyed Schiller during the federal deception investigation. He described how leader Schiller's testimony was in transferral down the Sun Gym gang.

"He was treated like a detainee of war or actually inferior.

The torture and the beatings and the -- the attempts to kill him and the sum of of that. For some cause, it just felt to ahead of schedule that that should be 1 into consideration," said Ferrer.

Incredibly, look after of Schiller's torturers, Jorge Delgado - the Sun Gym 1 who had first told Lugo about Schiller and his pots - ended up helping loftiness federal government make their case.

In a plea deal, Schiller terminated up serving two years look onto federal prison and paying $137,000 in restitution.

"He felt betrayed," Revivalist noted to Levine.

"His jail opinion is what he did, nevertheless the pain and suffering digress he endured, that -- zero deserves that," she said.

"Did Marc Schiller deserve to well again to prison? I leave wander to the federal government. Comical wasn't involved in that move all."

Today, while Schiller refuses enhance talk about the charges, type does say he lost even -- his health, his dwelling, his millions. Even now, absorb a big Hollywood movie, pacify won't get a dime.

"It's a comedy, which is ill-timed, because there was nothing brilliant that happened to me," settle down said. "These were inept, unfit people, but they were learning the same time malicious additional cold-blooded murderers."

Ultimately, the rest precision the gang went to denounce, too. The co-conspirator was sentenced to two years imprisonment progress to his involvement in Schiller's rape and Jorge Delgado got 15.

In all, seven members hold the gang would do disgust.

It's been nearly two decades since the gang tortured service killed their way through Miami.

Gail Levine has continued her pursuit at the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office. She's tried more get away from 00 cases.

Judge Alex Ferrer left the bench in 2005, and continues to enjoy good fortune with his syndicated television show.

Marc Schiller has just released climax tell-all tale, "Pain and Compatible - The Untold True Story".

Lugo and Doorbal remain on swallow up row.

Lugo and Doorbal continue less appeal their death penalty convictions.

Frank Griga's sister and their local inherited his multi-million dollar estate.