REVENGE PORN THREATS JAIL NYPD CAPTAIN, ALLEGEDLY ATTACKED FEMALE NYPD CAPTAIN
HARITON MARACHILIAN ALLEGEDLY SILENCED HER WITH REVENGE PORN, THREATENED 2d WOMAN
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A high-profile NYPD commander is being detained in New Jersey for allegedly beating and tormenting a female NYPD commander under the blind eyes of NYPD supervisors.
Captain Hariton Marachilian used revenge porn and surveillance video—including video captured inside an elevator in NYPD headquarters—to silence another NYPD captain, Filastine Srour, after Srour refused to have sex with him and he drunkenly beat and choked her until she blacked out a year ago.
The disturbing allegations were finally revealed in a New Jersey courtroom on Friday, during a detention hearing for Marichilian two weeks after his mysterious arrest in New York. Kidnapping, assault and coercion is what he's charged with for attacking Captain Srour in Paterson during the dark, early morning hours of December 10, 2022.
Marichilian attacked his fellow NYPD captain for so long and so badly that the two eyewitnesses who called 911 to stop the merciless attack thought he killed her, evidence presented by Chief Assistant Passaic County Prosecutor Gyselle DaSilva showed.
"Witness number one reported to 911 that he thought the person beating her would kill her and he reported he had to look away because the beating was so horrific," Passaic County Superior Court Judge Barbara J. Buono-Stanton found while explaining her decision to detain Marachilian after Friday's hour-long hearing.
"And witness two asked the police if she was still alive."
After his attack, Marachilian "threatened her that if she revealed who beat her he would send pics of her to her husband, the NYPD email and WhatsApp," Judge Buono-Stanton found.
Based in part on a cache of videos and images allegedly still in Marachilian's possession, the court ordered him held while the allegations against him are considered by a Grand Jury.
The NYPD made Srour the first female commanding officer of the Bronx’s 50th precinct last January—a month after Marachilian's attack. She was stripped of the command in August at the same time Marachilian was removed from his command of the 90th Precinct in Brooklyn, police said.
That happened a month after Marachilian allegedly threatened another female victim with revenge porn at least in part captured by his NYPD body camera. A New Jersey court issued a temporary restraining order against Marachilian on July 28.
In that case, the woman alleged Marachilian "threatened to release their pornographic videos and ruin her career if she notified the significant other that they were intimate together," DaSilva said. "She fears for her life."
The woman spoke with The Free Lance last week and confirmed her allegations—and her fears. Her identity is being withheld at her request.
Judge Buono-Stanton's decision denying Marachilian release based in part on his alleged threats to broadcast revenge porn appears to be a legal first—or at least among the first.
The married father-of-two waived extradition to New Jersey after his arrest in New York and has been jailed there since. He faces up to 30 years in prison and a mandatory minimum sentence.
The night of the attack began with Marachilian and Srour out to dinner with "coworkers"—presumably fellow cops—at a Paterson restaurant, according to a statement Srour eventually provided to investigators from the NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau. DaSilva, the prosecutor, read it in court.
The two, separately married NYPD captains were having an affair DaSilva characterized as "clearly volatile." After dinner, Marachilian drove Srour around Paterson in his SUV.
"He was asking why I won't have sex with him over and over," Srour told the NYPD’s IAB investigators.
Then Marachilian attacked her and drove to the end of a dead-end street, she alleged.
NYPD investigators found an eyewitness identified by prosecutors as "AV." AV saw Marachilian smack Srour inside the SUV. Srour got out and ran but Marachilian chased her down.
"They both engaged in a fistfight outside of the vehicle," AV said. He saw "the female punch the male knocking him down."
Srour tried to run again but Marachilian caught her again. He "threw her to the ground and started kicking her or stomping her," AV said. He picked her up, put her back in his SUV and "beat her up some more." The "female was screaming the whole time."
Srour said Marachilian punched her "9 or 10 times in the face" and "choked me until I passed out." Sitting in the SUV, bleeding and dazed, Srour thought Marachilian was going to kill her.
"I thought about my children. How their mom, me, wasn't going to make it home this night," she said.
That's when "the police lights lit up behind us and i thought to myself finally 'this is all over.'"
It wasn't. As soon as the police arrived, Marachilian threatened Srour "'remember the pictures.' Meaning, if I tell who beat me up he will send the pics to everyone using an NYPD email and WhatsApp," Srour said.
Paterson Police Officer Juan Cruz and other Paterson cops separated the two by sitting the bruised, bleeding Srour inside a police car while talking to Marachilian on the street. Marachilian told the cops he and Srour were having an “affair” and had a "verbal dispute" over a $700 dinner tab.
He also warned them he and Srour were both NYPD captains and they better be careful because they were "gonna fucking fuck careers up."
"'Listen Bro. Sir it's over. It's a verbal dispute. I got you. Listen to me guys. It's a verbal dispute,'" Marachilian pleaded, police body camera video footage submitted by prosecutors and quoted by Judge Buono-Stanton showed.
Meanwhile, Srour was sitting in the police car, unable to telephone anyone because Marachilian had taken her mobile phone.
"I couldn't call anyone while I sat there either," she told NYPD investigators. "I was just reeling and bloody from the beating."
Fearful of her attacker's threat to expose "the pictures," Srour shook her head no twice when police asked if Marachilian attacked her and whether she wanted an ambulance, according to her statement.
"I hope they weren't just going to accept that," she said, but they did. "They didn't call IAB for me either."
"I was shocked they didn't do anything and they were going to let him go," she added. "I asked not to. I thought he would kill me."
Police retrieved her mobile phone from the driver's side door of Marachilian's SUV and "I stayed in the car until my friend picked me up."
AV, the witness, told investigators he "assumed the male was going to go to jail but the police to his surprise let him go," DaSilva said.
Soon after, Marachilian promised Srour by text message he would "make this right" if she said her injuries were the result of a car crash instead of his attack.
"Just say car accident last night in New Jersey," he texted. "They can't question you further once you say car accident."
He "threatened me often after the incident to stay quiet as well on several occasions," Srour told investigators. He even "gave me $15,000 in cash to pay for therapy and extra sessions to cope after he agreed to stop pursuing me."
But he didn't stop, prosecutors alleged.
Video captured by surveillance cameras at NYPD headquarters in Manhattan showed Srour "aggressively" trying to snatch a mobile phone out of Marachilian's hand while he stood with a group of officers four months after the attack in March 2023.
Surveillance video taken inside an elevator at NYPD headquarters "almost immediately following" the first video also "shows while in the elevator FS strikes the defendant," DaSilva said. "Face, neck, approximately that area." Despite that, "they continue to stay in the elevator."
On Friday, Marachilian submitted these and other surveillance video from clubs and restaurants capturing Srour with him in the months after the attack as evidence nothing serious happened.
They've been "hanging out and continuing their affair after this incident that occurred," James Mastronardi, Marachilian's lawyer, argued. "They've interacted for the past year."
It wasn't until Srour met the other alleged victim in July 2023 that everything went "completely south. And it's our stance that these women have now colluded to now ruin Mr. Marachilian's life."
But DaSilva seized on the videos as evidence of Marachilian's "power and control over" Srour. "Ability for her keep quiet. For her not to report what had happened that night in Paterson."
All "of these videos are surveillance-type videos." That's "interesting" because "the defendant has these surveillance videos from headquarters, that he kept. These surveillance videos from these clubs or restaurants that he obtained and kept."
Judge Buono-Stanton questioned how Marachilian "seemingly had access" to the surveillance video, including the two from inside NYPD headquarters, in the first place.
New Jersey eliminated cash bail in 2017. The New Jersey system requires defendants be released unless prosecutors present "clear and convincing evidence" they present either a danger to their victims or the public, would likely not return to court or would likely obstruct or attempt to obstruct justice.
Judge Buono-Stanton found Marachilian should be detained for all three reasons. But she focused primarily on his alleged "repeated threats" to expose "intimate pictures" of Srour if she revealed the attack.
"Her fears are now renewed due to this incident now being addressed," the Court said. "And she deserves not to have him back on the street, seeking retribution against her."
The NYPD suspended Marachilian December 7.
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