Allan Kustok Murder Trial Closes With Daughter Talking Up Her Dad

Allan Kustok's daughter choked back emotion as she spoke of her tight-knit family and her faith that her father did not shoot her mother in the face.

Sarah Kustok, a sideline reporter for the Brooklyn Nets on the YES Network, stood firm for her father even when prosecutor Jennifer Gonzalez asked about his adulterous affairs—which only came to light after her mother's death.

"No I don't condone that," Sarah Kustok said of her father's philandering. "I'm not OK with it, but it doesn't change my opinion" on his innocence.

Kustok, 63, allegedly killed his wife, Jeanie Kustok, in September 2010 but claimed he woke to a gunshot and found her dead in bed next to him with a .357 Magnum on her body.

After learning his wife was dead, Allan Kustok said he emptied the five bullets left in the six-shooter into an armoire, then held Jeanie Kustok's body for more than 45 minutes before wrapping her in bedding and driving her to Palos Community Hospital.

Allan Kustok was arrested soon after telling police this story.

Sarah Kustok had no answer when asked what she thought about her father failing to call 911 after her mother was shot.

"I can't put myself in his shoes to have been there," she said.

Gonzalez also asked Sarah Kustok about the prospect of one parent going to prison after the other has died.

"You lost your mother, right?" Gonzalez said. "You don't want to see your dad convicted in this courtroom?"

Sarah Kustok agreed that she did not want to see that happen.

Allan Kustok repeatedly clenched his jaw and squinted his eyes in an apparent effort to compose himself while his daughter was on the witness stand. When defense attorney Rick Beuke finished questioning her, Allan Kustok stuck his fingers behind his glasses and wiped his eyes.

Allan Kustok's lawyers closed their case with Sarah Kustok as the final witness. Before she testified Monday, three teachers who worked with Jeanie Kustok at Riverside School District took the stand. Two of the women, Erin Feldman and Patty Dost, said Jeanie Kustok told them she had a gun during a conversation in the teachers' lounge.

Feldman said talk of the gun came up after she mentioned her husband had been traveling for work.

"I was telling them how I was nervous to stay at my house when my husband was out of town," said Feldman, recalling how Jeanie Kustok invited her to sleep over her home.

Jeanie "said, 'I don't get nervous,'" Feldman recalled. "I said, 'Why?' She said, 'Because we have a gun in the house.'"

Allan Kustok claimed to have bought the revolver for his wife as an anniversary present but—until Monday—none of a series of friends and family called to testify knew anything about Jeanie Kustok owning a gun. Even Sarah Kustok, who said she slept in the same bed as her mother when her father was out of town, testified to knowing nothing about either Allan or Jeanie Kustok possessing a firearm.

Feldman and Dost said that within days of the shooting they informed an Orland Park police detective about Jeanie Kustok claiming to own a gun. Six months to a year later, Feldman said an Orland Park detective touched base with her. That was the only contact either of the teachers had with police until the past weekend, when a detective called and asked them to meet with prosecutors before they testified Monday.

Cook County Judge John Joseph Hynes scheduled closing arguments in the case for Tuesday morning.

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