UC Berkeley professor killed in Athens: Suspect claims he ‘did it all for’ victim’s ex-wife, leaked police confession reveals

Greek police lead the ex-wife of murdered UC Berkeley professor Przemyslaw Jeziorski to court in Athens on July 17, alongside her new boyfriend and three others alleged to be involved in the Polish educator's shooting on July 4. CNN has added blur to this image. (CNN Greece via CNN Newsource)

On the morning of July 4, an American marketing professor was walking towards his ex-wife’s house in Athens to pick up their two young children. It should have been an unremarkable, if strained visit – the couple had apparently been disputing the terms of custody arrangements.

But Przemyslaw Jeziorski never made it to the front door.

In broad daylight, in this typically quiet, suburban neighbourhood of Greece’s capital, he was shot multiple times at close range, according to police. Jeziorski died where he fell, police said, his body riddled with gunshot wounds seen in grim photographs taken in the immediate aftermath.

As eyewitnesses rushed to his aid, the masked gunman fled.

The alleged perpetrator, arrested 12 days later: His ex-wife’s new partner. The motive, he told police: to prevent Jeziorski from taking away her children.

“I did it all for (her) and our children so that we could have a normal life without problems,” he said, according to a transcript of a statement he made to police in the aftermath of his arrest for premeditated murder as well as illegal possession and use of a weapon.

One of the most remarkable aspects of the case is that the statements made to police by the alleged perpetrators have been widely leaked to Greek media, including a CNN affiliate, CNN Greece. The statements, verified as authentic by a senior police source speaking to CNN, offer an insight into how the alleged murder plot was put together, why it was undertaken, and provide clues as to who may have known what, and when. But there are key questions unresolved, too – not least the role, if any, of Jeziorski’s ex-wife.

According to Greek police, she is facing moral accomplice charges, which she denies, according to her lawyer, who spoke to CNN. Like all the suspects in this case, her identity is known to CNN but cannot be published due to Greek legal restrictions.

The alleged perpetrator’s confession, and other conflicting accounts from three alleged accomplices that were also leaked to the press, sets up what is likely to be a lengthy and high-profile trial.

Meanwhile, the killing and the aftermath have shocked the friends and family of the victim, who say Jeziorski was a kind and introverted academic who loved his children.

Jeziorski, 43, who went by the nickname Przemek or “PJ,” was an economist and tenured professor of marketing at the University of California Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. He was born in Poland and moved to the United States in 2004 to study economics and math at the University of Arizona, and he went on to obtain his PhD from Stanford.

“He was one of the sharpest people I’ve ever met,” said Robert Kowalski, the victim’s friend from Stanford. “He was a great guy, a genius in many regards.”

UC Berkeley said in a statement that Jeziorski “had a passion for teaching” and during his 13 years at the California university, he taught data analytics skills to more than 1,500 graduate and PhD students. His research work centered on emerging markets, which took him around the world for field research, and Berkeley described him as “a leading expert in quantitative marketing, industrial organization, and the economics of digital markets.”

The dean of UC Berkeley’s business school, Jenny Chatman, said she was “heartbroken” by the death of Jeziorski, who she described as a “beloved member of our marketing faculty.”

Custody battle

Jeziorski met his ex-wife – a Greek national – in San Francisco in 2013, and they got married the following year, according to Kowalski. The couple’s twins were born shortly after.

In 2015, the couple co-founded a start-up called Keybee, a short-term rental property management platform.

It’s unclear what led to their relationship falling apart, but Kowalski told CNN the couple broke up around 2020 after moving to Greece during the Covid pandemic.

Their children are dual US and Polish citizens, according to a statement from the victim’s brother. The children had applied for Greek citizenship and were awaiting a decision on that, according to the ex-wife’s lawyer.

Jeziorski filed for divorce in June 2021, according to California court records.

It appears to be one element in a years-long custody battle for the children, who ultimately lived with their mother in Greece, with a provision that their father, Jeziorski, could take the children for one month every summer.

According to Kowalski, Jeziorski asked during the custody battle that his children attend an American school in Greece, so that they could be able to attend high school or college in the US one day.

But his ex-wife was afraid of losing the kids much sooner, according to the statement to police from the principal suspect, her boyfriend.

“We were afraid that he (Jeziorski) would end up taking the kids completely. That would completely finish off (my girlfriend), who was overly fond of them. This summer Przemek wanted to take the children and take them to America. But (my girlfriend) did not agree and so she went back to court with Przemek,” the suspect said, according to the testimony transcript.

On July 3, a custody judgement ruled that Jeziorski was indeed allowed to take the children for a month.

Conflicting confessions

“A month and a half ago I made the decision to end this torment we were experiencing once and for all,” the suspect told police, adding that it was a “good opportunity” given that Jeziorski was in Athens to attend the custody hearing.

The statement details how the suspect says he bought a pistol more than a month ago and asked a friend, who is from Bulgaria, to help him “find Przemek and scare him so that he wouldn’t take our children away from us.”

He said it all began in Nafplio, a coastal city about two hours from Athens, “so that it would appear that I was there” and his cell phone would “leave traces.”

The suspect said that that he, his friend and two others – a man and a teenager from Albania – he paid drove to Athens and waited on the same street as the ex-wife’s house, where the suspect said he knew Jeziorski was coming that afternoon to pick up the kids. “I approached him and shot him a few times, but I don’t remember how many times,” he said.

According to the statement, the men had rented a gray Porsche Cayenne as a getaway car, but the murder suspect told police that his accomplices left him at the scene after they saw him shoot the victim.

Police said Jeziorski died at the scene, where seven bullet casings were found after a masked gunman shot him in the neck and chest.

The three unnamed men who allegedly helped, two Albanian nationals and a Bulgarian national, are facing accomplice charges, police announced Thursday. The suspected accomplices – one of whom is a minor – have confessed to their peripheral involvement in the killing, a Greek police source told CNN on Thursday. CNN has been unable to reach attorneys for those men.

“My client has confessed his actions but as you can see from the simplicity of some of the things that took place this was not an organized plan. His accomplices only knew about a plan to scare him (the victim) so he would stay away from the children,” the main suspect’s lawyer, Ermis Papoutsis, told CNN. “(The ex-wife), his partner, knew nothing about any of this.”

“My client had come to me in the past to seek advice. He had said his partner’s ex-husband had serious alcoholism issues and that he and the mother were worried about allowing access to the kids. He wanted to see if there was something he could legally do about limiting access,” the lawyer added. “Now he is completely devastated after what happened. We will ask for a psychiatric examination because he has had some issues in the past.”

Jeziorski’s friends have denied the allegations that he abused alcohol.

On Friday, CNN Greece obtained the police testimony of the alleged accomplice from Bulgaria, which contradicts the account of the alleged gunman. In this account, the alleged accomplice claims the victim’s ex-wife had “organized the whole thing.”

He described his friend, the perpetrator, obtaining a gun and then asking “me to find some people to take him to Athens the next day to scare and threaten the Pole so that he would ‘back down’ on custody of the children.”

“In fact, from what he told me, (the ex-wife) made him do it because she didn’t want to give the children to the Pole,” the accomplice said in the testimony,” adding that the perpetrator offered him thousands of euros after he “did something we hadn’t agreed on.”

As for the ex-wife – beyond the statement of her lawyer, denying all knowledge, there is no further information about her testimony.

“We continue to maintain her innocence. Based on the case file and what we will present both in our written submission and during the oral proceedings in the main inquiry, we will highlight the key points that prove she had absolutely no involvement,” the ex-wife’s lawyer, Alexandros Pasiatas, said outside the court Monday. “She is innocent, she declares her innocence, just as she did at the start.”

For reasons that are unclear, nothing from her statements to police have made their way to the Greek media.

These inconsistencies – and other unanswered questions – will all be dealt with at the trial.

‘Our family is heartbroken’

Meanwhile, the victim’s family are dealing with the aftermath of an unimaginable tragedy. The victim’s brother said in a statement that “our family is heartbroken,” but grateful to Greek police and security professionals who made the arrests.

“Przemek’s ten-year-old children, who are US and Polish citizens, are now under care in accordance with Greek child custody procedures,” the victim’s brother Łukasz Jeziorski said in a statement. “Our primary concern is their safety and wellbeing, and helping them reconnect with their family to minimize the trauma they have already endured.”

Jeziorski’s family started an online fundraiser to repatriate his remains to his native Poland and pay for legal representation in Greece.

A US State Department spokesperson told CNN the agency is providing consular assistance to the family.

On Monday, the five suspects were appearing in person in court for their plea, according to Michalis Dimitrakopoulos, the lawyer representing the victim’s family. The court will determine whether the suspects will be remanded in custody pending the trial. A trial date will be set at a later stage, Dimitrakopoulos told CNN.

“The victim’s mother and brother will take sole custody of the children,” Dimitrakopoulos told Greek media on Friday. The lawyer said that “we’ve talked to the prosecutor for minors so that the victim’s mom and brother can get full custody of the kids and live with them in Poland, where they are now.”

“They have the opportunity to raise them in a loving environment, in a completely protective environment,” Dimitrakopoulos said, adding that “if the mother is acquitted, because we respect the presumption of innocence, then she has the right to request sole custody of her children.”

CNN’s Amy Croffey and Chris Dos Santos contributed to this report.

By Lauren Kent and Elinda Labropoulou, CNN