Second man admits role in tangled murder plot

Bill Gang

Friday, Sept. 4, 1998 | 11:34 a.m.

The second piece to the puzzle fell into place Thursday in the district attorney's convoluted murder-for-hire case against an owner of a Las Vegas sports betting service.

Court documents in the execution slaying read like a gangster novel.

There are stories of illegal bookmaking, rendezvous in topless clubs and casino bars and a love triangle revenge plot.

As the twisted tale unraveled, people started talking to police. Bullets peppered an apartment where witnesses gathered. And a second murder-for-hire plot was hatched to kill another witness.

The admitted killer, a Chicago thug named Jason Paris, earlier pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and will be spending at least the next 10 years behind bars.

On Thursday the middleman in the scheme, Blue Chip Sports betting service accountant Henry Pawlik, pleaded guilty to a charge of solicitation to commit murder. On Nov. 19, he faces a sentence of six to 15 years.

As part of their plea bargains, Paris and Pawlik have agreed to become state witnesses during the September 21 trial of Heath Michael Iliescu, who prosecutors believe is the mastermind and money man behind the murder plot, said Deputy District Attorney David Roger.

Bruce Ray Fisher, Iliescu's partner in the sports betting service at 900 E. Desert Inn Road, was killed December 14 with a single shot in the head from a .380 semi-automatic pistol. He had been lured outside his Warm Springs Road apartment.

At the time of the shooting, Iliescu was in jail on a charge of malicious destruction of private property. He was accused of spray painting a 1997 Jaguar owned by Peter Vrettas, who was said to have been vying with Iliescu for the affections of a woman.

Iliescu had asked Fisher to post his $1,000 bail, but his partner didn't do it, Metro Police detectives said in court documents.

Instead, Fisher met with friends at the Hard Rock hotel-casino and said he was going to "teach him a lesson" by letting Iliescu in jail, the report said.

As the evening wore on, Fisher and his friends went to Fisher's apartment. At about 8:30 p.m., a man knocked on the door. He told Fisher that his car had been accidentally struck, witnesses said.

Fisher was lured outside, and he was gunned down beside his 1995 Honda.

The botched bail deal, however, wasn't the motive for the murder. Court documents say distrust between the partners and a purported shakedown were at the root of the killing.

Trevor Wold, a mutual friend of Iliescu and Fisher who also worked in the sports betting field, told police nearly three months after the murder that Iliescu had been involved in taking illegal bets.

"Iliescu told Wold that Fisher had threatened to inform on his bookmaking activities if Iliescu did not put up the money to start Blue Chip Sports," Det. David Mesinar said in court documents.

Wold told police of overhearing a heated conversation between the partners. He said that about two weeks before the murder, Iliescu told him he had decided to hire someone to kill Fisher.

That "someone" is Paris, who was introduced to Iliescu by Pawlik on Thanksgiving day, Mesinar said.

Wold said he waited in a car outside Palace Station hotel-casino while Iliescu met with the hitman, Mesinar testified.

The price for the killing was said to be $20,000, with half as a down payment.

Rocco Attolico, a Blue Chip Sports employee, said in a March 2 interview with police that two weeks prior to Fisher's death, Iliescu told him he had hired a hitman because the victim had been "blackmailing" him, the documents say.

On the day Attolico talked with police, someone drove by 8101 W. Flamingo Rd. and shot up the building. Four men were inside, including Wold.

Court records also show that police obtained a wiretap order for Iliescu's telephones in early March. Within a few days, they intercepted a call from a person who called himself Jason. He wanted to meet with Iliescu.

A short time later, Paris arrived at the Paradise Road restaurant where Iliescu was waiting.

After another meeting between the pair a few days later, detectives arrested Paris.

The Chicago man, who had a history of run-ins with police and violence, eventually admitted his role in Fisher's murder and also told Las Vegas detectives that Iliescu had offered him $1,000 to keep Vrettas from pursuing criminal charges over the damage to the Jaguar.

Wold told police that he believed Vrettas was going to be the victim in a murder-for-hire because of the dispute over the woman.

But in the charges filed against Iliescu police say he had tried to hire Parris between March 2 and March 11 to kill Attolico.

Iliescu was indicted by a Clark County Grand Jury on charges, of murder, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation to commit murder in Fisher's death. He is maintaining his innocence.

He faces another solicitation to commit murder charge in an alleged plot against Attolico and a charge of discharging a firearm into a structure in the Flamingo Road drive-by shooting.