A North Andover man, who owns a pizza shop in Tyngsborough, is accused of beating an employee with a bat and sticking a gun in his mouth because he thought the man stole $20,000.
Eric Sideri, 46, of 6 Russell St., North Andover, was arraigned yesterday in Lowell District Court and is being held pending a dangerousness hearing scheduled for Thursday so a judge can decide whether to set bail, according to Corey Welford, spokesman for the Middlesex County district attorney's office.
The victim told police he is a manager at Angela's Coal Fired Pizza on Middlesex Road in Tyngsborough, which is owned by Sideri. The victim said Sideri seemed like he was in a bad mood Saturday night and left without saying goodbye to anyone. Another manager, Al Guevara, who works at the Saugus store, came in.
The victim said the cleaning crew showed up around midnight and Guevara told them to leave and come back in the morning because employees were going to have a meeting, according to a police report by Officer Michael Cassella.
Guevara counted the money they made that night, then picked it up off the table and held it. Then, Sideri allegedly burst into the room and hit the victim in the leg with a wooden baseball bat and asked, "Where is my money?"
Sideri accused the victim of stealing $20,000, the victim told police.
"He said that Eric told him, 'This can take one minute or it can take all night,'" the police report said.
Sideri repeatedly hit the victim with the bat and the bat broke on a chair. Sideri zip tied the victim's hands behind his back and punched him and hit him with the bat, the victim told police.
Sideri pulled out two handguns, a big one and a small one. He held the big one and said, "This will blow your brains out," the police report said.
"While his hands were tied behind his back, the large gun was stuck in his mouth and again, (he was) asked where the money was," the report said.
Sideri allegedly took the victim to the back door and opened a white sport utility vehicle that had a blue tarp and trash bags inside.
"I will kill you and nobody will ever know," Sideri allegedly said.
"(The victim) said he was then brought back into the building and punched again and while he was bent over, he was hit in the face with the broken end of the bat, causing a large laceration on his upper lip," the report said.
The victim pleaded with the men, telling them he would give them whatever they wanted. He said he would sell his girlfriend's car and call his Brazilian friends to come up with the money, the report said.
The attackers allegedly took the man's cell phone out of his pocket and made him call his girlfriend, but the woman suspected something was wrong and called the pizza shop business line.
According to the police report, the attackers gave the victim a towel to wipe his mouth. They started cleaning the blood around the kitchen and told him to leave and never come back.
The victim said he ran into the woods and called his girlfriend from a convenience store in Nashua, N.H. He was taken to the hospital and reported the incident to police around noon Sunday, the report said.
The man's injuries were visible to police, the report said.
North Andover police arrested Sideri Sunday night. Sideri is charged with kidnapping, three counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, threatening to commit a crime (murder), and larceny of a motor vehicle.
The police report said officers were seeking a warrant to arrest Guevara.
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