By Anthony G. Attrino
NJ.com
HUDSON COUNTY, N.J. — A former Hudson County corrections officer was sentenced Tuesday to 50 years in state prison for fatally shooting his girlfriend and another woman with his service weapon in Newark four years ago.
John P. Menendez, 27, pleaded guilty in March to two counts of first-degree aggravated manslaughter in the deaths of Anna Shpilberg and Luiza Shinkarevskaya, both 40, from Morris County.
He was sentenced to serve two consecutive 25-year terms with no parole eligibility until he serves 85% of his sentence, according to court records.
An attorney for Menendez did not immediately respond Wednesday to a request for comment.
Shpilberg and Shinkarevskaya were shot and killed on Feb. 16, 2021, in different parts of Newark.
Shinkarevskaya, of Riverdale, was found about 9:53 p.m. in the 100 block of Haynes Avenue near Newark Liberty International Airport.
Shpilberg, of Randolph, who was in a relationship with Menendez, was found dead about 9:55 p.m. in the passenger seat of her vehicle in the area of Edison Place and Bruen Street near Newark Penn Station.
Menendez, who had blood on him, walked up to a city police officer sitting in his patrol car and confessed shortly after the shootings, according to court records.
“I killed both of them. Just arrest me, bro,” Menendez told the officer. When the officer read Menendez his rights and handcuffed him, Menendez made further admissions.
“This is crazy. I can’t believe I did this,” Menendez told the officer, according to court records.
In a later recorded interview, Menendez told detectives he was angry that Shpilberg had gone away without him.
“Both women had just been on vacation and Menendez said that Anna had been ignoring his calls,” police wrote in affidavits in support of the charges. “He said he lost it and killed them.”
Menendez, who had worked at the Hudson County Jail in Kearny for about a year before the slayings, was originally charged with two counts of first-degree murder.
He pleaded guilty to reduced charges as part of a plea deal.
Despite the plea, and admissions in court records, friends and family members of the victims say they still cannot understand why Menendez killed the women.
“We have no idea what the motive was,” Fabian Goni, a friend to both women, told NJ Advance Media on Wednesday.
Goni gave a written statement to prosecutors and asked them to read it aloud during Tuesday’s sentencing hearing.
In his statement, Goni tells Menendez he has not only destroyed the lives of the victims and their families, but also ruined his own life.
The murders “have affected us (on an) unimaginable scale and you have no one else to blame but yourself,” Goni wrote. “I hope you see every day as a needle to a clock and time will get the best of you.”
Two lawsuits over the killings have been filed against Menendez and corrections officials, including one earlier this year on behalf of Shpilberg’s son, 20-year-old Daniel.
In his suit, the son claims “Menendez was unfit to be a corrections officer because his dangerous propensities made him inappropriate for armed police work.”
The lawsuit alleges that during police academy training, Menendez exhibited a lack of self control, and “was known to be an abuser of illegal steroids.”
“Menendez should not have been hired for any position for which he would be issued a handgun or any position enabling him to legally carry a handgun,” the suit states.
In an earlier lawsuit filed in February 2023, the mother of Luiza Shinkarevskaya claimed the Hudson County Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation negligently issued Menendez a service handgun, which he used to carry out the killings.
Shinkarevskaya’s mother, Bella Kazanovich, claimed Hudson County correctional officials failed in their duty to give Menendez a thorough psychological examination before issuing him a weapon.
Hudson County officials did not immediately respond on Wednesday to requests for comment on the lawsuits, which remain pending in state court.
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