Slain UC Berkeley professor said in restraining order request ex-wife made him 'fearful' for his life

Months before Przemyslaw Jeziorski, a marketing professor from the University of California, Berkeley, was killed in Greece, he filed a request for a restraining order against his ex-wife, saying he was fearful for his life due to alleged previous instances of blackmail, financial abuse and physical assault by his ex-wife's boyfriend, according to court documents obtained by ABC News.

The request was denied by a California court.

Jeziorski, a 43-year-old associate marketing professor at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, was allegedly shot and killed in Athens on July 4 near the home where his two children -- Zoe and Angelo -- live, his younger brother said in a statement. The children, who are 10-year-old twins, had been living with the Jeziorski's ex-wife in Athens since 2020, according to court documents.

In a press release shared on Thursday, police said an attacker "approached the victim and shot him in the chest and back, resulting in his fatal injury, and then fled."

Five people have been arrested in connection to the killing, including the professor's ex-wife, her boyfriend and three other men who were allegedly accomplices in the murder, according to Greek police sources. All five suspects appeared in court in Athens on Thursday.

Prior to the killing, Przemyslaw Jeziorski, known as "PJ" to his friends, filed a domestic violence restraining order request against his ex-wife, Konstantina Michelidaki -- who is referred to as Nadia Michelidaki by family and Greek media -- on May 9, nearly two months before his death, according to court documents filed in Alameda County Superior Court in California.

In the declaration accompanying the restraining order request, Jeziorski claimed that his ex-wife had used "coercive control" to keep the children away from him in Greece, financially abused their Airbnb rental property business and threatened to hurt his reputation. He also accused her partner, who is only referred to as "Christos" in the documents, of assaulting him.

Jeziorski and Michelidaki were married in March 2014 and were separated beginning on March 2021. A "bifucation of marital status was granted" by a court on Sept. 26, 2024, according to the documents.

"I am fearful of what she is doing now and what she will attempt to do next as we move forward in this divorce," the professor wrote in his declaration.

Allegations of physical assault by ex-wife's boyfriend

In the declaration, Jeziorski detailed an alleged incident on May 15, 2024, when he visited the children in Greece and was "twice attacked and physically assaulted" by Christos.

During that trip to Greece, the professor said he had dropped off his children at Michelidaki's house and said he was uncomfortable with Christos being there with the children -- which is when the boyfriend became "verbally aggressive," according to the documents.

"[He] charged at me on the street, pushed me and kicked me. I screamed for help. The security guard of the German embassy came out, and Christos stopped kicking me," he alleged in the declaration.

The professor had discussed his discomfort with Christos to his ex-wife previously, to which she would accuse him of lying and say that his "lawyer had instructed" him to say those things, the documents said.

"She made me afraid of my life by having her partner, who is hostile and aggressive towards me, during the visitation exchange, despite my asking her not do to so," he wrote in the documents.

Police in Greece were contacted regarding this attack and criminal charges were previously filed against Christos, the professor wrote in the restraining order.

ABC News has not verified whether charges were filed in Greece regarding the alleged assault

Claims of financial abuse, blackmail by ex-wife

In the restraining order request, the professor also accused Michelidaki of blackmailing him and threatening to end his career.

"Her goal was to humiliate me socially in order to control me and the finances. She did this to get me to drop the indictment against her partner regarding his physical abuse," Jeziorski said in the declaration.

He claimed she had accused him of "failing to give her co-authorship of my research papers" and "threatened to contact my colleagues and the dean of my department if I did not pay her money."

"Her allegations are baseless; however, this is a serious and sensitive topic for my academic reputation," he wrote in the restraining order.

He alleged his ex-wife also attempted to transfer money from their business accounts to her private bank accounts -- meaning she "pocketed" the income from their Airbnb business that was "meant to pay for the carrying cost of the rental properties," which resulted in a "bounced mortgage payment," he wrote in the declaration.

In the restraining order request, the professor requested that his ex-wife be ordered to stop contacting him (except with "reasonable communication regarding the children"), stop making defamatory statements against him, stop contacting anyone in the academic field related to him and that the court prohibit her control over any of the bank accounts related to their rental properties. He requested she be ordered to remain at least 100 yards away from him with an exception for "peaceful contact to exchange our children for custody purposes."

The court denied Jeziorski's restraining order request because "the facts given in the request do not show reasonable proof of a past act or acts of abuse" and that the "facts given in the request do not give enough detail about the most recent incidents of abuse," according to a checklist in the documents.

Now after his murder, Jeziorski's two children -- who are U.S. and Polish citizens -- are "under care in accordance with Greek child custody procedures," his brother said in a statement to ABC News on Thursday.

The five suspects in his killing will have another court appearance on Monday, according to Greek police sources.

ABC News' Daphne Tolis contributed to this report.