Soviet Army Defector Given Death Sentence : Crime: He and an accomplice killed a popular member of the U. S. Estonian community after she stopped supporting them.

A Soviet army defector who said he survived a hail of bullets as he escaped from East Germany was sentenced to death by a San Fernando Superior Court jury Monday for the brutal murder of a North Hollywood woman who had befriended him.

Judge Howard J. Schwab will impose the sentence on Peter Sakarias, 24, on Dec. 5.

In a taped confession, Sakarias said he and his accomplice, Tauno Waidla, 23, killed Viivi Piirisild, 52, because they blamed her for their economic problems. The two men arrived in the United States as heroes in 1987 because of their daring escape from what was then communist East Germany.

Piirisild, who was popular in the U.S. Estonian community, supported the two men, and even allowed Waidla to live in her home. But the relationship soured when she stopped helping them because they refused to support themselves.

On July 12, 1988, the two men broke into Piirisild’s home while she was out. When she returned, Waidla struck her on the head with the blunt end of a hatchet and Sakarias stabbed her four times with a knife. The two men were captured a month later in New York when they tried to re-enter the United States from Canada, where they had fled.

In March, Waidla was sentenced to death for his part in the slaying.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Steven J. Ipsen, who prosecuted the case, said outside the courtroom that the death sentence was appropriate.

“Tauno and Peter were the left and right arms of a brutal murder,” Ipsen said. “It says a lot about how this system, in fact, works when you have two partners in such a brutal murder and then separate juries reach the same conclusion that death is the appropriate sentence.”

Rick R. Mathewson, the jury foreman, said the brutality of the crime was the strongest factor in deciding on the death sentence instead of life in prison.