Hilton hotel near JFK (James Messerschmidt)
CHAOTIC SCENE: A witness to the stunning violence yesterday at the Hilton hotel near JFK (inset) is led off by police for questioning, but was later released and not charged in the shooting.The two men in the murder-suicide had been eating in a group of six. (Ellis Kaplan; James Messerschmidt (inset))
A man lunching with five associates at a Kennedy Airport hotel yesterday suddenly jumped to his feet, drew a gun and pumped up to eight bullets into the head of one of his fellow diners.
Then he blew his own brains out, authorities and witnesses said.
The four others at the table tried to flee but were tackled by security guards at the Hilton Garden Inn and turned over to cops.
Their meeting had taken place in a private room adjacent to the main lobby cafe.
The six “were speaking a foreign language — it may have been Russian,’’ according to a person who had been within earshot before the bullets began flying at around noon.
Queens DA Richard Brown, who rushed to the scene, declined comment when asked if the violence had anything to do with Russian organized crime.
The gunman was Gary Zalevsky, 47, of Sunny Isles, Fla., and Brooklyn, a source told The Post. The man he shot before turning the weapon on himself was Brian Weiss, 31, of Davie, Fla.
Weiss was the CEO of a sketchy, Florida-based food-supplement company called FWM Laboratories. The firm was among 50 sued in Manhattan federal court in 2009 on charges of falsely implying that Oprah Winfrey and celebrity MD Mehmet Oz had endorsed their products.
That same year, the Florida Better Business Bureau logged nearly 3,000 unanswered complaints against FWM and assigned it a grade of “F.’’
Brown said he did not know what yesterday’s meeting was about. But another law enforcement source said the two may have been arguing about an Internet company they owned.
The dead men’s lunch companions yesterday were hauled off in handcuffs. They lawyered up, did not cooperate with detectives and were released.
A hotel employee who had been just outside the cafe described the chaos. “I heard eight or nine shots,’’ said the man, who asked that his name be withheld.
“I froze up. Never heard anything like that before. I saw four men outside being put down on the ground by some policemen.
“There were two dead guys slumped over in chairs. I can’t believe this happened where I work.”
Kimball Hinton, who was staying at another hotel nearby, had been in front of the building.
“I didn’t hear any gunshots, but I could tell all hell was breaking loose because people started breaking out of the hotel and running up the street,” Hinton said.
“I asked people what happened, and they ignored me. They just kept running.’’
Brown gave this account of the violence: “A group of men walked into a meeting room in an area just beside the lobby.
“One of [them] stood up and fired a weapon at another individual, and then turned the weapon on himself . . . There are men who are in custody.”
The hotel was closed for about six hours after the shooting, and when it began checking in new guests, workers told them: “Hi, are you checking in? Let me just inform you that we have an ongoing police investigation here. We don’t really know what happened, but if you are uncomfortable with that, we can reimburse or relocate you.”
After the shooting, a group of Air Canada flight attendants made a quick exit.
“We’re going back to Canada where this s–t just doesn’t happen,” one of them said. “The men were sitting at a red, rectangular table. They seemed cordial. And they looked totally normal.’’
Another guest, Lance Beard, said, “I rushed outside to take a look, and I saw these men being cuffed on the sidewalk. They looked scared to death.
“Am I leaving? No, with all the police here, this is probably the safest place to be.”