The Prince of Paradise (43 page)

F
ORTY-
N
INE

VALHALLA

At the end of July, Narcy Novack was brought back to New York and taken to the women’s unit of the Westchester County Jail in Woods Road, Valhalla, where she would remain until her eventual trial.
It was a long way from the luxurious lifestyle she had grown accustomed to.

On Monday, August 9, 2010, Narcy appeared in federal court in White Plains, pleading not guilty to charges related to her husband’s murder.
Handcuffed and wearing gray prison garb, she looked tired and drawn.

After Narcy made her plea, Howard Tanner asked federal magistrate Paul Davison to grant bail, saying his client would agree to be electronically monitored.

Prosecutor Elliott Jacobson argued against bail, calling Narcy a flight risk and a danger to the community.
He also revealed new damning evidence against her.

“We have learned of efforts to kill another witness,” said the federal prosecutor without elaborating.
He described Ben Novack Jr.’s killing as “extraordinarily grisly,” adding that the “Veliz Family” had also plotted to frame and assault May Abad.

Tanner countered that it was “unfair” for the government to make such serious allegations without backing them up.
“The government will simply throw out allegations that are not based on any fact,” he told the magistrate.
“Anyone can say anything they want about plots, but there is going to come a time, and it will come at the trial, where they’re going to have to be put to their proof.”

Tanner also denied that Narcy Novack was a flight risk.
“My client allegedly committed these crimes a year ago,” he said.
“She had a passport the whole time and could have left the jurisdiction, but she didn’t.”

Magistrate Davison refused Novack bail, saying his decision had nothing to do with the government’s new allegations, but was based solely on the indictment.

*   *   *

In late August, Narcy Novack requested a public defender, claiming she could no longer afford to pay her attorney Howard Tanner.
In a letter to U.S.
District Court judge Kenneth Karas, now assigned to the Narcy Novack case, Tanner said his client was broke, as she was unable to access her husband’s estate.
It would later be revealed that Narcy had already paid Tanner the “vast bulk” of the $105,000 Rye Brook convention money she had taken after her husband’s death.

In a financial affidavit, Narcy claimed to have received no income in the previous twelve months, and to having just $1,500 in her bank account.
She listed her assets as her marital home, worth $7.8 million, plus automobiles, collectibles, and other personal assets worth $500,000, along with $800,000 worth of jewelry.
She also wrote that she owed $53,000 on credit cards, with monthly payments of $1,200, plus $480,000 in back payments on the $9,000-a-month mortgage for 2501 Del Mar Place.

“The above assets are unavailable to me,” she wrote at the bottom.
“All assets have been frozen or seized by the government.”

In an accompanying letter, Tanner requested that Judge Karas allow him to continue to represent his client, and offered to work for the basic public defender’s salary.
“Her inability to pay is due to the fact that all estate assets have been frozen,” Tanner wrote, “as a result of civil forfeiture actions initiated by the government and/or probate proceedings pending in Broward County, Florida.
Accordingly, all funds have been rendered unavailable to her and she cannot borrow against these assets.”

He told Judge Karas that a new counsel would be “unduly prejudicial” to Narcy Novack, and that he knew the case intimately, having represented Narcy in both criminal and probate matters since her husband’s death.

After reading the letter, Judge Karas agreed to allow Tanner to remain, as long as he was compensated only as a court-appointed public defender.

*   *   *

Even from jail, Narcy Novack and Cristobal Veliz were still trying to frame May Abad for Ben and Bernice Novack’s murders.
Joel Gonzalez, who had now cut a deal with the government, saw Veliz almost every day at Valhalla jail.
One Sunday morning, when they were attending church together, Veliz made him an offer.

“He offered me money,” Gonzalez later testified.
“He said once I went over to him, he would pay $150,000 into an account.
Then, after Mrs.
Novack [was free,] he would put another $150,000 in an account.”

Veliz, who had no idea Gonzalez was cooperating with prosecutors, said if the government asked who had orchestrated the assaults, he should say May Abad had hired him and Garcia to do them.

Gonzalez refused to commit himself, stringing Veliz along for a while.

“He kept asking me, ‘Are we going to do it?’”
Gonzalez said.
“He kept telling me to give an account number to put the money into.
I kept saying, ‘I’ll talk to you the next time I see you.’
I never gave him a direct answer.”

Eventually, Cristobal Veliz resorted to threats.

On October 10, Gonzalez was in his cell when another inmate handed him a handwritten note from Veliz.
It contained Bible verses from Deuteronomy and Luke, which Gonzalez perceived as a direct threat.

“One witness is not enough to convict anyone of any crime or offense they may have committed,” read the passage from Deuteronomy 19:15.
“A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.”

Gonzalez interpreted this to mean that if Alejandro Garcia was cooperating with the government and he, Gonzalez, was not, it would be enough to destroy the case against Narcy Novack.

*   *   *

At 10:00
A.M.
on Thursday, December 16, Narcy Novack, dressed in a gray prison outfit and chained around the waist, was back in federal court for a routine status conference.
Also in the courtroom were her brother Cristobal Veliz, his son-in-law Denis Ramirez, and Joel Gonzalez.

On the way from the Westchester County Correctional Center, Gonzalez had been placed in a holding pen with Narcy.
“She asked me if it was hard to set her free,” said Gonzalez, “and to do her this favor.
I was the only one that could help her.
The only one that could give her freedom.
She was reiterating what Mr.
Veliz had said.”

Later, at the hearing, Howard Tanner asked Judge Karas for a sixty-day adjournment, in order to review discovery turned over by prosecutors.
Then, as the attorneys discussed possible dates for the next status hearing in late February, Narcy Novack became visibly agitated.

When Tanner told the judge that he would be out of town for the week of February 20, Narcy exploded, startling the courtroom.
“While you’re away,” she snapped at her lawyer, “I’m going to be locked up here in Valhalla.”

Judge Karas then set the next status hearing for February 10, and Narcy and the other defendants were led out of the court by bailiffs.

After the hearing, Tanner told reporters that his client was understandably frustrated by having to remain behind bars until her trial.
“Nobody’s happy being in jail,” he explained.
“Jail is a new experience for her.”

*   *   *

On Thursday, February 10, 2011, Joel Gonzalez was conspicuous in his absence at the next status hearing.
This time Narcy Novack appeared more composed, chatting to Howard Tanner throughout the brief hearing.
Sitting behind another table were Cristobal Veliz with his lawyer, Stephen Lewis, and Denis Ramirez with attorney Ismael Gonzalez.

Joel Gonzalez’s absence went unmentioned by both Judge Karas and prosecutor Elliott Jacobson.

During the hearing, Jacobson told the judge that he would soon decide if the government would file additional charges against Narcy Novack and the other suspects in connection with Bernice Novack’s murder.
He said a grand jury was now considering new federal charges, and might issue a superseding indictment in the next few weeks.

After the hearing there was much speculation that Joel Gonzalez had already pleaded guilty, strengthening the government’s case even more.

“Whatever it is, if he’s admitted anything,” Howard Tanner told reporters, “I don’t believe that he will hurt my client, because my client continues to assert her innocence.”

One week later, Denis Ramirez threw in his cards and pleaded guilty, too.
He admitted to driving Garcia and Gonzalez to the Rye Town Hilton for what he believed was to be an assault and robbery.

In federal court, Cristobal Veliz’s thirty-six-year-old son-in-law and the father of his grandchildren pleaded guilty to conspiracy and domestic violence charges.
He denied knowing that Ben Novack Jr.
was the target for murder, and claimed he thought he was driving the two men to the hotel to commit a violent robbery.
During the hearing, prosecutors named their star witness and Ben and Bernice Novack’s confessed killer, Alejandro Garcia, for the first time.

Federal prosecutor Jacobson also revealed further new details about Ben Novack Jr.’s murder.
It had been Narcy Novack, he said, who had made the crucial call to the killers at 6:39
A.M.
from the Hilton Hotel, instructing them to proceed.
Then, about half an hour later, she had let them into the hotel suite to commit the murder.

Two weeks later, the
Journal News
reported an unidentified law enforcement source claiming that Garcia had told investigators that Narcy’s oldest brother, Carlos Veliz, had offered him money to murder Ben Novack Jr.
Carlos, who had not been charged, denied having anything to do with Ben’s murder.

“They are dealing with people who have a rap sheet up to the ceiling,” Carlos told the
Journal News.
“One thing I know, my name will not dance in that (jail).
I’ve got nothing to do with it.”

F
IFTY

FRUSTRATION

On Tuesday, April 5—the second anniversary of Bernice Novack’s death—federal prosecutors finally charged Narcy Novack with orchestrating the murder.
In an eleven-count superseding indictment filed in White Plains federal court, Novack and her brother Cristobal Veliz were charged with racketeering in the April 2009 death and with attempting to have Alejandro Garcia killed so he couldn’t testify against them.
Narcy Novack was further charged with laundering $95,000 out of the $105,000 she took the day after Ben Novack Jr.’s murder.

“This indictment alleges racketeering acts that run the gamut from murder to robbery to obstruction of justice,” said U.S.
attorney Preet Bharara.
“A bloody and corrupt chain of events for which the defendants will now have to answer to a jury.”

Prior to the media learning of the new charges, Maxine Fiel had received a courtesy call from the Westchester County prosecutor.

“I knew she had been killed,” an elated Fiel told
Journal News
reporter Jonathan Bandler with regard to her sister’s death, “and felt it was me against the world.
But now it’s an indictment.
I hate to think of my sister and the fright she felt that day.
[Narcy’s] an evil woman and I hope she never sees the light of day again.”

*   *   *

Three days later, Narcy Novack and Cristobal Veliz were arraigned on the new charges at White Plains federal court.
They both pleaded not guilty.

At the hearing, federal prosecutor Elliott Jacobson dramatically upped the stakes, revealing that the government was now considering charging the siblings with murder in the aid of racketeering, which can carry the death penalty.

Narcy sat next to Cristobal, the two flanked by their respective attorneys.
She wore an orange prison jumpsuit; her lank brown hair was streaked with gray.
Carlos Veliz’s wife, Melanie Klein, also attended, sitting quietly in the back row of the public gallery.

As Prosecutor Jacobson told Judge Kenneth Karas that the government was now considering a capital case, Narcy suddenly became animated.
She began wagging her finger at Howard Tanner as the prosecutor explained that if the death penalty were brought into play, the Capital Crimes Unit would come in to review the case, which could delay the trial for months.

“This process is glacial,” Judge Karas noted.

At 4:59 that afternoon, Prosecutor Jacobson sent an e-mail to Howard Tanner and Stephen Lewis, giving their clients one final opportunity to plead guilty before he went ahead with the new capital charges.

“It is our intention,” Jacobson wrote, “to proceed with several violent crime in aid of racketeering counts (including a murder in aid of racketeering count) in a superseding indictment.
These counts were approved by the Department of Justice this afternoon.

“We will hold off returning the superseder until 9:00
A.M.
on Monday, April 25, 2011.
Please contact me if you wish to resolve this matter by plea.”

*   *   *

The morning of the deadline, Cristobal Veliz wrote a letter to Judge Kenneth Karas informing him that he had now fired his attorney, Stephen Lewis.
He accused Lewis of trying to railroad him into pleading guilty and testifying against his sister, and telling him that his case was already lost.
Veliz’s letter also made a series of unsubstantiated allegations against Ben Novack Jr., May Abad, and Denis Ramirez’s cousin Francisco Picado.

Veliz claimed that his niece had told him that Ben Novack had raped her in 1991, when she was growing up.
In 2009, Veliz claimed, May had told him she’d caught her stepfather receiving oral sex from one of her sons.
He said he had confronted Ben Novack with May’s accusation, but he had denied it.

“[Her] anger … caused her to send people to kill Ben,” Veliz wrote.
“She’s claiming the money that belongs to her mother as a personal reward for the traumatic rape that she went through and also what Ben did to her son.”

Veliz also claimed that Ben Novack had made “strange videos” about “handicapped females in wheelchairs” having sex.

“My only fault in this matter,” Veliz told Judge Karas, “is that I should have been honest with my sister and told her what had happened.”

*   *   *

At the next status hearing, held on Friday, May 6, Prosecutor Elliott Jacobson told Judge Karas that the Department of Justice needed a further six weeks to decide whether to seek the death penalty.
If it became a capital case, the defense would have to bring in new attorneys, experienced in death penalty cases, to join the defense teams—a process that could take months.

With attorney Stephen Lewis also announcing that he would no longer be representing Cristobal Veliz, things would be delayed even further, as a new lawyer would have to be brought up to speed on the case.

After the hearing, Judge Karas met with Veliz and Lewis in his chambers to discuss Veliz’s letter.
It was decided by “mutual agreement” that Veliz would get a new attorney.

*   *   *

A few months earlier, Bernice Novack’s home had been put on the market, with an asking price of $875,000.
And in May, her treasured possessions, including many from the Fontainebleau, were sold off.

The grand piano that Frank Sinatra had supposedly given her fetched $6,897.97, and the prized bronze and marble statues that had once adorned the hotel went for a total of almost $19,000.
The remaining jewelry that hadn’t been taken by Narcy sold for nearly $15,000, and her dresses and other clothing, $5,350.

The sale made a total of $182,983.37, less the appraisers’ 20 percent commission, giving her estate $146,386.70.

“They cleared everything out of the house,” said Rebecca Greene.
“It was so sad to see these total strangers going into that house and taking Bernice’s things.
She was such a private person, and to have total strangers go in there and box it all up and take it away in U-Hauls was just devastating.”

*   *   *

On May 19, Cristobal Veliz took his case to Supreme Court judges John Roberts and Stephen G.
Breyer.
In a letter written on his behalf by Laura Law, he appealed for justice.

“I am a wrongly accused man,” he stated.
“I have not been involved in any way in the crime that I am arrested and jailed for.
The legal system has been treating me badly.”

He accused his former attorney Stephen Lewis of teaming up against him with prosecutor Elliott Jacobson, and the FBI and the Westchester County District Attorney of conducting a “lousy” investigation without “a single clue or evidence.”

He copied the letter to the
New York Post
, the New York
Daily News
,
El Diario
, and the
Journal News
, but not one story appeared.

*   *   *

On Thursday, June 23, Narcy Novack was back in White Plains federal court with Cristobal Veliz.
Throughout the status hearing, at which prosecutors announced that the Justice Department had still not made up its mind about the death penalty, Narcy appeared visibly upset and agitated.
Wearing a cream prison outfit, her brown hair tied back with a blue ribbon, she repeatedly shook her head in annoyance.

“I’ve instructed her that there’s no basis for a bail application,” Tanner explained to the judge.
“She’s frustrated.”

“I understand,” Judge Karas replied.

At the end of the hearing, as Narcy was being led out of court by a bailiff, she banged the government’s table in anger and glared at the prosecutor.

A few minutes later, outside the courthouse on Quarropas Street, Laura Law handed out to the reporters assembled there a protest letter from Cristobal Veliz.

*   *   *

Each week, Laura Law, who worked as a nurse at a Brooklyn hospital, caught a bus to Westchester County Jail in Valhalla, New York.
In the morning she would visit Cristobal Veliz, and then walk over to the women’s jail to see Narcy Novack in the afternoon.

Narcy had now been locked up for a year, having little to do with the other inmates.
She spent her days working on her case in her cell, remaining in daily touch with her brother Cristobal by mail.
She kept a strictly kosher diet inside the jail.

“She doesn’t share a cell,” said Laura Law.
“She don’t want to talk to nobody over there.
She’s just living alone because she doesn’t like the other people.”

Law said that Narcy had started writing a book about her once-glamorous life with Ben Novack Jr., giving her version of his murder.

“She writes it down like a story book,” said Law.
“She likes to show it to me.
She says it’s a very good story and that it might be a movie one day.”