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The former manager of the famed Tick Tock Diner in Clifton, Georgios Spyropoulos, 45, was indicted today for a plot to hire a hit man to torture and then kill his uncle by marriage.

(Mike Roy/The Star-Ledger)

TRENTON — The former manager of the famed Tick Tock Diner in Clifton was indicted today for plotting to hire a hit man to torture his uncle for the combination to a safe and then to murder him.

The plot unraveled earlier this year, state authorities said, when Georgios Spyropoulos, 45, of Clifton, unwittingly sought help finding an assassin from a State Police informant, who led him right into the hands of an undercover detective posing as a hit man.

The indictment, handed up by a state grand jury in Mercer County, charged Spyropoulos with first-degree conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder, as well as second-degree attempted robbery and various weapons offenses.

“This was not just a case of Spyropoulos having a bad day and making idle threats,” said Elie Honig, the director of the state Division of Criminal Justice. “We allege that Spyropoulos took concrete steps to execute a plan to rob and murder his own uncle."

Authorities said Spyropoulos met with the informant in March and, in a secretly recorded conversation, laid out his plot to kill his uncle by marriage, Alexandro Sgourdos, 57, of Clifton, who manages the Tick Tock Diner in Manhattan and co-owns both locations.

Spyropoulos allegedly resented Sgourdos' control and profit from the family diners and wanted to increase his ownership and management in Clifton, so he concocted a plan to have a hit man torture his uncle for the combination to the Manhattan diner's safe.

Authorities said the hit man was to pose as an exterminator to enter the diner and steal the cash from the safe once he had the combination. He was then to murder Sgourdos and dispose of the body so it would not be found by law enforcement.

Spyropoulos allegedly offered to pay the hit man $20,000 to carry out the plot.

Then, in April, authorities said, he met with the informant and the detective posing as the hit man, provided a revolver, two photographs of the uncle, a map to his house and a $3,000 down payment.

Spyropoulos was arrested April 9 and remains free on $600,000 bail. His attorney, Anthony Pope, said he intends to plead not guilty at arraignment.

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