Police asking for public’s help finding a missing Wharton man
NEWS

Convicted killer admits to witness tampering, assault try

Peggy Wright
@PeggyWrightDR

A 29-year-old man who is serving a life sentence in prison for arranging the murder of his wife in Boonton in 2011 pleaded guilty Monday to tampering with two witnesses and trying to get an inmate he met at the Morris County jail to harm his two brothers-in law.

Kashif Parvaiz was found guilty in February by a Morris County jury of acting as an accomplice in the shooting murder of his wife, Nazish Noorani, 27, on Cedar Street in Boonton on Aug. 16, 2011.

Continually maintaining his innocence and assertion that his ex-girlfriend -- state’s witness Antionette Stephen -- committed the slaying on her own, Parvaiz was sentenced on May 21 to life in prison. The jury accepted the state’s case that Parvaiz had arranged for his girlfriend to shoot his wife, the mother of two young boys, while the family was in Boonton to break the fast of Ramadan with relatives.

Under heavy guard by four special operations officers from the state Department of Corrections, Parvaiz was transported from New Jersey State Prison to the courtroom of Superior Court Judge William McGovern.

Parvaiz pleaded guilty to two counts of witness tampering and two counts of aggravated assault, or attempting to cause significant bodily injury. In exchange for his plea, Morris County Assistant Prosecutor Matthew Troiano has recommended that Parvaiz be sentenced on July 31 to five years in prison, which will run concurrently to the life sentence already imposed.

Under questioning by defense lawyer John Latoracca, Parvaiz pleaded guilty to writing letters between May 1 and June 1, 2013, from the Morris County jail to Stephen, who was incarcerated in the women’s wing of the same jail. He admitted that the letters sought to persuade Stephen not to testify against him at trial, but she did.

He also admitted that he tampered with a second witness, another ex-girlfriend, by soliciting the help of a former inmate at the jail. Parvaiz agreed that he wrote this inmate after his release, asking him to threaten the woman so she would be dissuaded from testifying against him at trial. The threat was not carried out.

Parvaiz admitted that he wrote the same inmate in October 2012, asking him to harm his two brothers-in-law. He acknowledged that he was angry that the brothers-in-law were successful in gaining custody of his two boys -- who were three and five when their mother was killed -- because he wanted his own parents in New York City to get custody of the children.

The name of the inmate to whom Parvaiz turned for help was not disclosed but Latoracca said the inmate’s cooperation in tipping off authorities to the solicitations resulted in more lenient treatment of his charges.

Latoracca said that the guilty pleas to aggravated assault and witness tampering do not conflict with Parvaiz’s assertions of being innocent of the murder. The actions involved letters, not actual physical events and occurred after his arrest, Latoracca said.

Parvaiz, who didn’t testify at his own trial, was polite and spoke for the first time in court.

“I’d like the court to accept the guilty plea,” he told the judge.

Authorities and trial witnesses had said Parvaiz claimed to have attained a degree in architecture and to be a student at Harvard University at the time of the murder but in court Monday he told the judge his highest educational achievement was a high school diploma.

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