Gary Craig, and Sean Lahman

Democrat and Chronicle

The ambush was quick, the weapons everywhere.

First the room went dark, then masked men, clothed in black, burst into the littered living room at the Harvest Street house.

"At that point I got up, trying to run for the exit," Nicholas Kollias, now 22, testified Thursday about the attack that precipitated the hours of torture he and classmate, Ani Okeke Ewo, were subjected to over a December 2015 weekend.

Neither victim had been heard from publicly until Kollias testified in court.

Remembering the horror, Kollias alternated between an occasionally firm voice and long silent pauses, as he led jurors through the brutality of the weekend. The two were rescued by a Rochester police SWAT team.

He described in graphic and grisly detail the violent assaults inflicted by his captors, who came and went from the room where the two men were being held.

UR students abducted, hurt, prosecutor says

Jurors were shown a cellphone video that captured a portion of the ordeal. Several masked men brandish guns, knives and chainsaws as they threaten and taunt the two students, who lie bleeding and injured on a bathroom floor. One of them is heard begging for his life.

"Please! I'll do anything," a voice is heard pleading.

Nine people were accused of roles in the abduction and torture of the two men. Five have pleaded guilty; four are now on trial before state Supreme Court Justice Alex Renzi.

Kollias and Ewo were lured to the Harvest Street home by two women they did not know late one Friday night. Once inside, Kollias said, the assault began.

Kollias was sitting on a couch when the attackers rushed into the room, armed, he said, with knives, baseball bats, pipes and guns. He tried to sprint to a door, and was shot in the leg.

First guilty plea in UR kidnapping case

He managed to stand before being subdued. "My femur was completely broken in half," he said.

"At this point I got clubbed over the head, put on the ground. ... That's when I thought it was all over."

The two were dragged into a bathroom and tortured for hours.

"The torture consists of something you would see in a movie, but it's not a movie because this is real life," he said.

Second person pleads guilty in UR kidnapping case

He was shot in the other leg, and continually beaten with knives, bats, and even a chainsaw, he said. The assailants, who took the UR student's credit cards, ATM cards and telephone, seemed almost gleeful, according to the testimony.

"They put flammable liquids on us, saying they were going to light us on fire," he said.

Jurors also heard audiotapes of phone calls that Kollias said he was forced to make on Saturday and Sunday to his financial institutions, seeking to raise his credit lines or get access to investment accounts.

Kollias testified that he concluded his abductors were planning to keep him alive only until the banks opened on Monday morning and they could finish draining his accounts.

Throughout the weekend, Kollias said he could hear the sounds of numerous people coming and going from the house At one point, Kollias said he heard men and women watching football games on television in an adjacent room.

"They were drinking and having a good time while there were people dying in the other room," he said.

As the sun began to set on Sunday, Kollias thought he was going to die from his injuries.

"At this point, my body was broken down and I didn't know how much longer I could go on," he said.

But then Kollias described being jarred by the sound of multiple explosions.

"I thought they were burning down the house," he said, "but it was the SWAT team saving our lives."

Lydell Strickland, David Alcaraz-Ubiles, Inalia Rolldan and Ruth Lora are now on trial for alleged roles in the abduction and subsequent brutality. Strickland faces the most serious charges, including kidnapping and gang assault. Alcaraz-Ubilies is accused of kidnapping, assault and criminal possession of a weapon. Lora and Rolldan face kidnapping and criminal possession of a weapon charges.

Third person pleads guilty in UR kidnapping case

Sources have told the Democrat and Chronicle that Ewo was wrongly identified as an individual involved in the robbery of local drug dealers, and that mistake prompted the kidnapping. Kollias was with him at the time of the kidnapping. The abductors used two women to persuade the UR students to go with them to the Harvest Street house.

Fourth UR abduction defendant accepts plea

One of the women reached out to Ewo via Facebook and text messages, Kollias said, and he and Ewo met them one night and went with them to the house. The two women have pleaded guilty to crimes and may testify. Three others also have pleaded guilty.

Outside of court Thursday afternoon, Prosecutor Matthew Schwartz wouldn't say whether Ewo planned to testify, and declined to identify other potential witnesses he might call.

The trial is expected to last a month.

GCRAIG@Gannett.com

SLAHMAN@Gannett.com