Fugitive Accused of Killing Orthodox Jewish Boss in Tribeca Jewelry Store Brought Back to NYC After 8 Years on the Run

BROOKLYN – A fugitive who fled the country after allegedly murdering his Orthodox Jewish boss in a Tribeca jewelry store more than eight years ago has been extradited back to New York City to face justice, Manhattan prosecutors announced Monday.

Michel Patrick Desalles, now 54, is accused of brutally beating and choking Omid Gholian, 43, with zip ties inside the World of Gold N Diamond store at Church and Duane Streets on February 14, 2017 — before boarding a flight that same evening to his native Mauritius, evading authorities for nearly a decade.

Gholian, an Orthodox Jewish businessman from the Iranian Jewish community in Brooklyn’s Marine Park neighborhood, was reported missing by his family after they hadn’t heard from him for several days. His brother filed a missing persons report with the 1st Precinct, and police later helped family members access the locked jewelry store — where they discovered Gholian’s lifeless body in a pool of blood in the back of the shop.

According to prosecutors, Gholian had been savagely beaten, and zip ties were cinched tightly around his neck. The medical examiner ruled the cause of death as “compression of the neck,” and declared the case a homicide.

Desalles, an employee of Gholian’s at the time, allegedly committed the murder that morning and fled New York just hours later via JFK International Airport.

The break in the case came after years of international collaboration between U.S. and Mauritian authorities. The Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs, the U.S. Embassy in Port Louis, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Office of the Attorney General of Mauritius — along with local police — tracked down Desalles and took him into custody.

He was extradited to New York on Friday and formally charged with second-degree murder. At his arraignment, Desalles was ordered held without bail. He is scheduled to reappear in court on August 11.