Standup Comedian Tells of Ashley Madison Tryst With Alleged Wife-Killer Allan Kustok

Posted Feb. 20, 2014, at 06:34 PM

CHICAGO — A Michigan standup comedian who also works as a private eye took the witness stand Thursday and told about her one-night stand with alleged wife-killer Allan Kustok.

Toni Kregelka testified how she connected with Kustok on the website Ashley Madison.

"The site is basically set up for married couples who are looking to have a discreet affair," Kregelka drawled as she was questioned by prosecutor Lorna Amado-Chevlin.

Kregelka's testimony was recorded on video and will be shown to the jury at a later date. Cook County Judge John Joseph Hynes sent the jury home after one of Kustok's lawyers, Ricke Beuke, slipped in the Bridgeview courthouse parking lot Thursday morning and opened a bloody wound on his elbow.

Beuke was taken to the hospital for treatment but returned Thursday afternoon for Kregelka's turn on the witness stand. The right sleeve of Beuke's white dress shirt was stained with blood and he went without a necktie in the afternoon session.

Kustok, 63, faces a charge of first-degree murder for allegedly shooting his wife, Anita "Jeanie" Kustok, in the face in September 2010. After the shooting, Allan Kustok reportedly wrapped his wife in sheets and a blanket and drove her to Palos Community Hospital.

Kregelka was the first and only witness to testify so far. She explained how she had been "angry" with her husband, the second of her three, "but that wasn't the reason why" she met Kustok for sex.

After thinking about it some more, Kregelka admitted her hard feelings toward her then-husband "probably played into" her affair.

Kregelka apparently attracted Kustok's attention with an Ashley Madison profile that featured a photo of her in a bikini and a profile that said she wants "burning hot chemistry and somebody to ignite it."

"If you have a voice like Mike Tyson or a body like Barney Fife, don't. It hurts me," her profile said.

The henna-haired mother of five told how she rendezvoused with Kustok in July 2010 at the Shark Club, a bar off Interstate 96 in Howell, MI, about 40 miles from where she was living. Kregelka said Kustok had told her he was in the area on business.

When they met in person for the first time, Kustok hugged her "really tight," Kregelka said, before they sat down and "had libations."

While together in a Shark Club booth, Kustok rubbed Kregelka's feet and groped her breasts, she said.

"I don't want to say he was grabbing my breasts because that sounds aggressive," Kregelka said. Kustok was merely "squeezing" them, she said.

Before long "the conversation became more focused" on the point of their meeting, which was "finding someone to be intimate with," Kregelka said.

Kregelka said she was initially bashful around Kustok, who she believed was eager to get intimate. She said she was "like a freshman with the captain of the football team on a date," and that she "felt pressured" to have sex with him.

Kregelka explained she "wasn't interested in a one-night stand," that she was really after a long-term relationship outside her marriage. She said Kustok "let me know that he was interested, that he wanted to begin a physical relationship."

So they did, she said, telling how they headed out to the "small motel behind the club," got a room, had sex and then parted, never to meet in person again.

Kregelka said she left about 3:30 or 4 a.m. to make sure she was around for her children in the morning.

Kregelka and Kustok did keep in touch for a few more months through instant messaging and telephone conversations, Kregelka said, but lost contact around October 2010.

Kustok allegedly put a bullet through his wife's cheek about a month before he and Kregelka ceased communications.

A pair of Orland Park detectives turned up at Kregelka's ex-husband's home in May 2011, she said, and her ex let her know the cops wanted to talk to her.

She said she identified Kustok, whom she knew only as "Al," to the detectives through a photograph, but denied having sex with him because she was "embarrassed."

Overcome with guilt, she called the police the following day and came clean about her affair.

"I told (a detective) I was very sorry and I felt bad," she said.

Neither Kustok's daughter, Brooklyn Nets announcer Sarah Kustok, nor his son, former Northwestern University quarterback Zak Kustok, were on hand for Kregelka's testimonty. Sarah Kustok attended the two previous days of court proceedings.

Related: Read our archive of stories about Allan Kustok and the shooting of his wife