they said his name is victor paleologus and i pulled over on the side of the road and it was like white noise. it was unbelievable that this was the same guy. for christine kludjian, an actress from santa monica, it was like a bad flashback. by 2003, it had been 14 years since she had met victor paleologus, though he had told her his name was john maroni and asked her out on a date. he said, i ll pick you up in a limousine, we ll have dinner. and there s a big industry party, because he said that he was a music executive at columbia records. meet some famous people. he mentioned madonna, he mentioned a couple of other people. so, that s fun, that s great. why not? he told her the party was to be in a downtown hotel in a suite. she was 21.
are you ready now to talk more candidly about what happened? well, i have never had an issue about talking about any piece of the case. hindsight right now, almost immediately gave me the remorse of ever signing or ever agreeing to the plea. there it was. for victor paleologus, remorse was not about killing kristi, it was only for taking a deal and admitting he did it. you took responsibility for kristi s death? i had to. i had to in order to get the plea. look, unless you re actually in that situation, unless you re actually faced with the same consequences and the same pressure and the same mental mind-bending that you re going through, then you may have just made the same choice that i made that day. and
it s 11 pages. i read the letter this morning and i have read it again. victor had written a letter to the judge. 11 hand-written pages, crammed with misused words of many syllables, pleading for, well, the judge seemed astonished. in the letter, mr. paleologos requests or makes a motion to withdraw his guilty plea. withdraw? victor had changed his mind about pleading guilty. i m going to deny the motion, mr. paleologos. the law states very clearly a plea may not be withdrawn simply because the defendant has changed his mind. my name is kirk johnson. i m kristi s father. and then he listened as her family spoke about the loss, the hurt. the reason that we re here is because of mr. paleologos.
he alone had caused the death of kristi johnson up on that rain-soaked hill in hollywood. the deal? he would escape the death penalty. get 25 to life with the possibility of parole, but without the right to appeal. all these months and years saying, you know, i didn t do it, i didn t do it, i didn t do it. in the middle of the trial he suddenly says, i did it ? i was shocked. was it important to the family to hear him say, i killed your daughter ? it was. it was. did they get as much as they wanted in that respect? no. i think they wanted to know why she had to die. i have a theory, i can t prove it. only victor knows if it s true, but i think he lured her up there for the purposes of raping her. he assaulted her, she fought back, he strangled her, went a little too far, she lost
he s coming out. this time a woman he had dated accused him of breaking into her house and trying to attack her with a rope. he made a deal. pleaded guilty to burglary. got probation. as for the s.w.a.t. team, it was all a big mistake, he says. along the way, victor also got in trouble for i.d. theft and fraud. it was 1998 when, based on the evidence of several women, he started refining his bond girl scam. one of the victims was so traumatized, she told us she wants to remain anonymous even now. i just wanted to have a good time. that was the whole concept that night. as victor says, all he wanted was a date. well, yes, he did tell her, he says, that he could get her into a bond movie. like an idiot that comes out in me sometimes, it s ridiculous. she says he tied her up, tried to rape her. after she met him at his abandoned restaurant for an audition. again, he took a plea deal,