Jury deliberations start on killing of wife in Boonton

A Morris County jury asked to return Thursday after deliberating more than two hours Wednesday on whether Kashif Parvaiz schemed with his mistress in 2011 to murder his wife on a Boonton street shortly after a religious celebration with family.

The jury was given about three hours of legal instructions -- called the jury charge -- from Superior Court Judge Robert Gilson before taking a short lunch break and starting deliberations at 2 p.m. The jury is considering 10 charges against Parvaiz, who has been held in the county jail on $3 million bail since shortly after his wife’s killing by gunfire on Aug. 16, 2011.

The charges are murder, conspiracy to commit murder, endangering the welfare of a child, child abuse, hindering apprehension by lying to police, two counts each of unlawful possession of a weapon and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, and possession of hollow point bullets.

Around 3:30 p.m. jurors sent out a note stating they wanted transcripts of trial testimony from detectives pertaining to the weapons possession offenses. They asked to be excused at 4:30 p.m. and are slated to return at 8:30 a.m. Thursday to resume deliberations.

Family of the victim, including her brother Kaleem Noorani and sister Lubna Choudhry, were in the courthouse in anticipation of a verdict. Parvais’ parents have attended every day of the trial.

The case prosecuted by Morris County Assistant Prosecutors Matthew Troiano and Erin Callahan centered largely on testimony from Antionette Stephen, one of three mistresses with whom Parvaiz was involved during his six-year marriage. Stephen, now 30, of Billerica, Mass., in 2013 struck an agreement with the state to cooperate and testify against Parvaiz.

Stephen, who said she believed Parvaiz was divorced under Muslim law but not American law, admitted that she gunned down Noorani around 11:15 p.m. on Aug. 16, 2011. She said she fired four bullets into Parvaiz to wound him, in a pre-arranged scheme to make the attack appear to be a robbery or bias assault based upon the couple’s ethnicity and Muslim heritage.

“Mr. Parvaiz thought that he could outsmart everyone that was involved,” Troiano told jurors in his closing argument Tuesday. “He thought ‘I’ll play the race card and I’ll say I’m from Harvard.’”

While defense lawyers John Latoracca and John Bruno argued that Stephen plotted the killing on her own, prosecutors presented extensive evidence that Parvaiz despised his wife and wanted her out of his life before he ever met Stephen at an architectural college in Boston in January 2010. At the time of her death and leaving behind sons aged 5 and 2, Noorani was living with Parvaiz’s parents in Brooklyn while he lived in Boston as a purported architectural student at Harvard University.

Defense lawyers contend that Parvaiz may have had marital problems but didn’t hate his wife and had considered having a third child with her.

The couple was in Boonton to break the fast of the Muslim holiday Ramadan with Noorani’s family, which included her father, brother and sister. Minutes before the slaying, Parvaiz texted his own wife to say they needed to leave her sister’s home on Williams Street in Boonton to return to her father’s home on Church Street.

Wheeling their 2-year-old boy in a stroller, Parvaiz and Noorani were shot as they walked the short distance between the two homes on Cedar Street. The little boy was splattered with blood but not hurt.

“He brought his son to the murder of his mother,” Troiano had told jurors. The charges of endangering the welfare of a child and child abuse relate to Parvaiz allegedly putting the boy in danger of being shot or harmed during Stephen’s attack.

Defense lawyers stipulated to the jury -- which started hearing evidence on Feb. 4 -- that Parvaiz was not a Harvard student. He had made references to Harvard shortly after he was shot, according to his admitted statements.

In his closing argument,, Troiano also read from text messages exchanged between Stephen and Parvaiz and retrieved from their cell phones that showed they were fine-tuning the plot to kill and were in touch throughout the day before the murder. While the two guns that were used in the shooting were found in Stephen’s bedroom closet in Massachusetts, the prosecutors had also shown jurors video of Parvaiz and Stephen practicing together at a shooting range in Massachusetts.

Stephen, who faces a minimum of 30 years in prison with 30 years of parole ineligibility, told jurors that after a romantic relationship evolved between she and Parvaiz, he convinced her that Noorani was poorly educated, materialistic, and cared so little for their two sons that she refused to take their 5-year-old boy Riyaan to a hospital for necessary blood transfusions to treat sickle cell anemia. Prosecutors at trial called the boy’s pediatrician who said the child doesn’t have the illness and never did.

While being treated at Morristown Medical Center after he was shot four times, Parvaiz wound up admitting to now-retired Prosecutor’s Office Capt. Jeffrey Paul that he arranged for his wife to be shot and himself wounded. Defense lawyers had attacked the confession, calling a doctor to opine that Parvaiz was heavily medicated with anti-anxiety and pain pills that impaired his judgment during the police interview.

Prosecutors also presented evidence of Parvaiz asking Antionette Stephen’s sister, Sandra, if she could find a substance that would make a person’s heart stop. In this Facebook chat, retrieved by investigators, Parvaiz perpetuated a lie of being divorced from Noorani but obligated to pay her $1,600 a month.

Jurors also heard the content of multiple emails that Parvaiz sent in 2009 and 2010 to companies that claimed to specialize in black magic powers. He asked if they could devise ways to make his wife disappear, commit suicide or leave him, according to testimony. The defense did not specifically rebut the Facebook chat and black magic email testimony, focusing instead on what they characterized as ludicrous claims by Stephen of being groomed to commit murder for Parvaiz.

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