Vladimir Lushevskiy kept in custody on NJ gun charges after wife found dead wrapped in plastic in Philadelphia
A Northeast Philadelphia man accused of killing his wife – who was found wrapped in plastic in a closet – holed up in a motel near the New Jersey Turnpike before he was found by police and taken into custody on a gun charge, a court hearing revealed Wednesday.
Vladimir Lushevskiy, 65, appeared virtually from the Burlington County Jail for a detention hearing in Superior Court in Burlington County. A Russian-fluent interpreter was present.
This hearing concerned gun charges filed in the Garden State after Philadelphia police requested assistance in locating Lushevskiy in connection with the death of his wife, Lola Karabaeva.
Police in Westampton, New Jersey, went searching for Lushevskiy in response to that request, Judge Craig Ambrose said, referencing the affidavit of probable cause in the case.
Westampton officers went to the Red Carpet Inn in Westampton Township and found Lushevskiy in the hallway exiting a room there, holding three bags, Ambrose said. The officers then detained Lushevskiy after he admitted one of the bags had a gun inside. Officers searched the bag and found a loaded .38 caliber revolver handgun.
"When he crossed into New Jersey, he crossed into a jurisdiction that has the most serious gun control laws in this country, and he came into our jurisdiction fleeing allegations of homicide in the state of Pennsylvania," Ambrose said. "That's why I must not analyze the fact that he has a handgun in New Jersey in isolation of the facts or the allegations out of the state of Pennsylvania. And when I couple both allegations, the homicide out of Pennsylvania and the loaded handgun in New Jersey, I do find that this defendant poses a high risk to the community."
Karabaeva was last seen on Oct. 12, which was also the birthday of the couple's late son, Eugene Lushevskiy. The 19-year-old was reported missing after he went on a hike on Mt. Baldy in San Bernadino County, California, on Oct. 31, 2004.
Eugene never came down from the mountain. He was listed as missing for several years with no trace except for a backpack that held an intact camcorder. The video on the camera showed views of the snowcapped mountain and trees and a moment where Eugene was talking to a ski lift operator about heading to a campsite. He also appeared to set up a campfire at some point.
Crews were able to recover remains from the mountain in late 2010 and they were identified in 2011 as belonging to Eugene.
Investigators are looking into whether Karabaeva and Vladimir Lushevskiy got into an argument on what would have been Eugene's 39th birthday, law enforcement sources told CBS News Philadelphia's Joe Holden.
Security footage showed Vladimir Lushevskiy leaving the couple's home on Diplomat Place on Oct. 12. Karabaeva was found on Oct. 16.
Defense attorney Anthony Rizzo argued his client was set to remain incarcerated no matter what until his homicide case in Pennsylvania is resolved. He asked that he be granted pretrial release on the New Jersey charges.
"The court [in Pennsylvania] has set a bail of $1 million, that is an amount that my client can in no way post. So the bottom line is he is going nowhere fast," Rizzo said. "He's not going anywhere except to Pennsylvania right ... from this jail in Burlington County."
"He has bachelor's degrees in journalism and logistics, he has been in this country since 1998, he has been a citizen since 2010," Rizzo added.
Ambrose said arguments from Burlington County Assistant Prosecutor Eric Cornog convinced him to keep Lushevskiy in jail on the New Jersey gun charges.
"To rule otherwise would present a problem that I believe would be incongruent with the fugitive from justice proceedings," Ambrose said.