NEWS

Testimony: Kashif Parvaiz besmirched wife after her death

Peggy Wright
@PeggyWrightDR

Kashif Parvaiz bad-mouthed his slain wife as materialistic and critical within hours of her death and ultimately admitted that he hired a tow truck driver from Queens to kill his spouse and wound him with gunfire in Boonton, a retired detective testified Tuesday.

“I think everything about Mr. Parvaiz is fake,” testified former Morris County Prosecutor’s Office Capt. Jeffrey S. Paul, who retired in 2012 to become county Office of Emergency Management director.

Called by Assistant Prosecutor Matthew Troiano at Parvaiz’ trial on charges of murdering and conspiring with a girlfriend to murder his spouse, Nazish Noorani, 27, Paul spent the entire day Tuesday on the witness stand.

Noorani was shot three times around 11:15 p.m. on Aug. 16, 2011, as she and Parvaiz -- her husband of six years -- walked up Cedar Street in Boonton, pushing their 2-year-old son in a stroller.

The couple was in Boonton to celebrate the Ramadan holiday with relatives when Noorani was shot on the street and Parvaiz received non-life-threatening wounds from four bullets.

Paul testified that Parvaiz claimed the shooter was a tow truck driver nicknamed Nomi Tow but authorities later determined that was false. Antionette Stephen, a now-30-year-old woman from Massachusetts who Parvaiz met a few years earlier while living apart from his family in Brooklyn to purportedly attend Harvard University in Boston, has pleaded guilty to carrying out the killing and wounding at Parvaiz’ request. She is expected to testify next week for the state.

Paul, who headed the Prosecutor’s Office’s tactical divisions unit in 2011, testified that he went to the crime scene and then to Morristown Medical Center early on Aug. 17, 2011. Two other detectives had taken initial statements from Parvaiz, who claimed he and his wife were attacked by three men who shrieked “(expletive) terrorists!” at them and opened fire. Paul testified that he didn’t buy the story and wanted to talk to Parvaiz because people aren’t randomly attacked on residential streets of a town like Boonton.

“Something’s going on in someone’s life,” Paul said he thought at the time. “This isn’t Newark and why did it happen?”

Without recording the interview, Paul said he initially talked to Parvaiz for about two hours at the hospital and the wounded man confided to having a troubled marriage and a girlfriend. He claimed his wife, the mother of their two sons, was “loose in the head with psychiatric problems,” “very materialistic,” envious of property belonging to other relatives, and threatened to take their sons away.

“Mr. Parvaiz was very comfortable describing how awful his wife was,” Paul told the jury hearing the case before Superior Court Judge Robert Gilson in Morristown.

Paul said that he challenged Parvaiz about his claims of being attacked and that Parvaiz admitted the shooting was “an accident” that wasn’t meant to happen. Parvaiz stated that he didn’t want to go to jail and didn’t want to be the person to tell his children their mother was dead, according to Paul.

“He said he could prove it wouldn’t happen again by getting professional help,” Paul testified.

Paul said he then fetched a Miranda form to inform Parvaiz of his constitutional rights against self-incrimination and then recorded another interview. This conversation, played for the jury, essentially involved Paul repeating remarks made by Parvaiz during their unrecorded talk and Parvaiz agreeing that he had made the statements.

Using a recorder, Paul spoke again to Parvaiz around 6:40 a.m. on Aug. 17, 2011, and this time said he had “unfortunate news” to deliver.

Without explicitly stating so, the implication was that Paul was breaking the news to Parvaiz that his wife was dead. Parvaiz could be heard crying softly on the tape. Paul told him he realized the death was “an unfortunate accident” and asked that he reveal the truth about what occurred on Cedar Street.

“Let’s deal with this man to man. Let’s just do the right thing now,” Paul told Parvaiz.

But for awhile, even after meeting with his father, Shafiq Hassan, at the hospital, Parvaiz did not provide any more details about the shootings. Around 8:45 a.m., Paul said he again had an unrecorded conversation with Parvaiz. He told the jury that Parvaiz confessed that he arranged for the murder of his wife, and to be wounded himself to deflect suspicion.

Parvaiz stated he feared for his safety and didn’t want it publicly known that he arranged for the shootings with a tow truck driver nicknamed “Nomi Tow” from Queens, Paul testified, adding that Parvaiz claimed he paid no money for the act but that he owed Nomi Tow a favor in return.

Paul subsequently recorded an interview with Parvaiz that went over the information about Nomi Tow. Parvaiz repeated that he arranged for the shootings and that Nomi called him between 9:30 and 10 p.m. on Aug. 16, 2011, to tell him he was ready, Paul said.

According to authorities, the story about Nomi Tow was fictitious and Parvaiz had allegedly conspired with Antionette Stephen, a lover from Boston, to commit the shootings. Detectives found evidence of the conspiracy in text messages exchanged between Parvaiz and Stephen in the days surrounding the shootings.

Defense lawyer John Latoracca pressed Paul on why he didn’t keep raw notes of his interviews as required by a State Attorney General directive. Paul said he typed all his notes on an iPad as the interviews were occurring so he essentially had his notes, though he corrected typos and syntax before turning the notes into a formal report.

Nearly sneering, Latoracca questioned why Parvaiz would be forthcoming about problems in his marriage if he had something to hide. He also challenged Paul to give examples of “non-verbal cues” he said he picked up from Parvaiz and which suggested to him the husband was deceptive. Paul responded that Parvaiz’s tears and emotional reactions seemed fake, and said: “I think everything about Mr. Parvaiz is fake.”

The trial continues Wednesday in Morristown. Parvaiz’s charges include murder, conspiracy to commit murder, child endangerment, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, unlawful possession of a weapon, and hindering apprehension. He has been held since his arrest in the Morris County jail on $3 million bail.

Staff Writer Peggy Wright: 973-267-1142; pwright@njpressmedia.com