By Sheetal Banchariya, John Annese
New York Daily News
NEW YORK 鈥� Peter Zisopoulos, the man who butchered FDNY EMS Lt. Alison Russo, more than 20 times just steps away from her Queens EMS station, will spend 25 years to life in prison.
Zisopoulos, 37, was sentenced Monday in Queens Supreme Court, after a jury found him guilty of murder and weapon possession last month.
| READ MORE: Personal protective gear to protect EMS providers from attack
Russo was on duty and in uniform, less than a block from her stationhouse in Astoria, when Zisopoulos, then 34, charged her and shoved her to the ground, then repeatedly stabbed her with a serrated kitchen knife. Surveillance video captured his relentless attack, as his knife tore through her liver, lungs and heart.
He tried to chase away a man on a scooter who intervened, then fled into his apartment, where police arrested him after a standoff.
鈥淎lison Russo was the best of the best: a longtime public servant and friend who has been missed every single day since her senseless murder,鈥� FDNY Commissioner Robert Tucker said Monday. 鈥淭oday, we are appreciative that her killer has been sentenced to the maximum punishment.鈥�
鈥淭his sentencing speaks to the brutality of the crime,鈥� he added. 鈥淎nd though it won鈥檛 bring her back, I pray it will finally give her family the closure they deserve.鈥�
Zisopoulos took the stand in his own defense, saying he was home asleep at the time of the attack, and refused to open the door for cops because 鈥渢hey harass me.鈥�
He also claimed, as a courtroom full of Russo鈥檚 FDNY and EMS colleagues watched, that the blood cops found in the bedroom he shared with his mother came from his sister, who suffered a nosebleed earlier that day.
Police recovered a knife covered with his and Russo鈥檚 DNA from Zisopoulos鈥� front pants pocket.
It took a jury less than an hour to convict Zisopoulos of second-degree murder on May 19 .
Russo, a 24-year veteran of the FDNY, was planning to retire in a few months.
She was appointed to the FDNY in March 1998 as an emergency medical technician and was promoted to paramedic in 2002 and to lieutenant in 2016. Former FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh posthumously during her funeral on Long Island.
Zisopoulos鈥� mental health status has been the subject of several court hearings over the past three years, with Judge Ushir Pandit-Durant deeming him . He was found fit that October and again days before the trail started, despite findings by two court-appointed medical experts.
漏2025 New York Daily News.
Visit .
Distributed by