A morbidly obese Long Island man flying to the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas died on board the flight of an apparent heart attack, The Post has learned.
Paul “Smalls” Kitsos, 55 — who owned a successful women’s apparel company — was aboard United Airlines flight 863 that left JFK Airport at 5:25 p.m. Monday, bound for San Francisco, where Kitsos was planning to catch a connecting flight to Las Vegas.
About 20 minutes after takeoff, the 5-foot-11, 350-pound Kitsos, of Manhasset, pressed the overhead “help,” button and complained about being ill, according to a Port Authority source.
When flight attendant Ken Pace approached him, Kitsos was “sweating profusely and breathing heavily,” and Pace soon afterwards was unable to detect a pulse, the source said.
A doctor aboard the flight pronounced Kitsos dead at 6:23 p.m., sources said.
The pilot returned to JFK, where four cops were needed to remove Kitkos from his seat, sources said.
Kitsos was carrying more than $11,000 in cash, as well as prescription heart and ulcer medications, the sources said. Kitsos had earned $387,764 on the World Poker Tour since he began playing professionally five years ago and had cashed in 18 different events.
He finished 320th in the 2008 World Series of Poker in November 2008, earning $32,166 and his biggest paycheck — $103,500 – came in June 2009, when he finished fifth in the Borgota Summer Open.
He was wearing a limited edition Hardcore Watch Company wristwatch – one with a picture of the suicide king, from a deck of playing cards, on is face, adorned with rubies for the numbers and diamonds in the king’s robe.
Kitsos’ wife, Stella Spanakos, told The Post her husband of 20 years had a love for poker and a zest for life.
He fell in love with Texas hold ‘em when it became popular after 9-11. He was always a very, very sharp card player and he became addicted to it. He read a bazillion books [about it],” she told The Post.
“He was a character. He lived large and that’s the way he went out — Frank Sinatra, ‘My Way.’ And that’s the way he did it,” she said.
Kitkos, who attended CW Post College and once played professional basketball in Greece, was the owner of KB Studio, a successful women’s apparel company for full-figured women, his wife added.
” Patti LaBelle wore one of their suits on the Wendy Williams Show,” she said.
Just after he left to board his ill-fated flight, Kitkos sent a text message to the couple’s 18-year-old autistic son, Nicholas, who does not speak, telling him, “Daddy misses you already,” his wife said.
Her son responded, Spanakos said, by texting back his dad, “Good luck, you’re the best.”