A 37-year-old man pleaded guilty on Friday, March 25, 2022, to kidnapping a young man last year in Upper Southampton Township, forcing him at knifepoint to drive to an ATM to withdraw money and threatening to kill him and his mother.
Pavel Belous, of Philadelphia, had been scheduled for a jury trial Friday, but instead entered an open guilty plea to two counts of attempted homicide and one count each of kidnapping, robbery, simple assault, terroristic threats, theft by unlawful taking and possession of an instrument of crime.
He entered the plea before President Judge Wallace H. Bateman Jr., who ordered a pre-sentence investigation and deferred sentencing for 90 days.
In court Friday, Deputy District Attorney Robert D. James described how Belous stalked the victim for an hour on March 11, 2021, after a chance encounter at a Philadelphia convenience store.