A convicted killer accused of pumping bullets into a Diamond District jeweler in a suspected slaying-for-hire fired off his mouth in court yesterday, shouting an obscene demand at the judge.
Carlos Fortier, 36, pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the shooting death of Eduard Nektalov, 46, last May 20 on a Sixth Avenue sidewalk near Rockefeller Center.
Fortier, who has AIDS and was already in custody in an unrelated case when cops fingered him as their prime suspect based on ballistics tests, appeared to mutter to himself in Spanish throughout yesterday’s brief court proceeding.
Afterward, as the 5-foot-2 Fortier was being led out of the courtroom in handcuffs, he gave Manhattan Judge Michael Ambrecht an angry look over his shoulder and yelled out a Spanish phrase, telling the judge to perform oral sex on him.
The NYPD is still investigating Fortier’s alleged motive, but the leading theory is that he was hired to rub out Nektalov, police sources said.
Nektalov’s family has been uncooperative, especially concerning requests for private and professional information about him, sources said.
The victim, who was walking along Sixth Avenue between 47th and 48th streets, was shot in the head and body about two months before he and his father, Roman, were to go on trial on federal charges that they helped launder drug money for Colombian drug lords at their business, Roman Jewelry.
The younger Nektalov had been falsely rumored to have been cooperating with investigators, sources said at the time.
Last July, a jury acquitted the elder Nektalov, 75, of most charges in the case, but convicted him on a count involving a diamond sale.
Eduard Nektalov’s accused killer was sentenced in March 2000 to two to six years for manslaughter for stabbing his wife to death in a drug-related argument.
Fortier was busted and has been in custody since being indicted last September on a weapons charge for allegedly firing several rounds at someone on a Bronx street on Aug. 30, 2004.
Police zeroed in on him in as a suspect in Nektalov’s murder after a ballistics check showed the shell casings found in The Bronx and Sixth Avenue shootings matched, cops said.