Overview

• Queens Supreme Court imposed the maximum 25-to-life prison term on Peter Zisopoulos after a jury convicted him last month of second-degree murder and criminal weapon possession.
• Surveillance video and court testimony revealed Zisopoulos stabbed Lieutenant Alison Russo over 20 times outside her Astoria station in September 2022.
• Officers arrested him in a Queens apartment standoff where they found a serrated knife coated in his and Russo’s DNA.
• Zisopoulos’s defense raised his schizophrenia diagnosis in multiple competency hearings before judges deemed him fit to stand trial.
• FDNY Commissioner Robert Tucker called Russo “the best of the best,” and prosecutors said the ruling pays tribute to her 24-year EMS career and delivers long-sought justice.