The Prince of Paradise (41 page)

F
ORTY-
S
EVEN

THE BIG BREAK

On Wednesday, November 18, investigators were finally ready to move in and arrest Alejandro Garcia for Ben Novack Jr.’s murder.
Over the last few weeks they had been busy gathering evidence against him.
He and Joel Gonzalez had now been clearly identified on surveillance video at the Rye Town Hilton at the time of the murder.
Detectives had also interviewed Gladys Cuenca, who told them that Garcia had introduced her to Cristobal Veliz, who had then spent three days in her trailer with the two suspected killers.

The investigators’ endgame was to arrest Narcy Novack and her brother Cristobal for Ben’s and Bernice’s murders, but they would start with Garcia and Gonzalez and try to get them to cooperate.

That morning, investigators Ed Murphy and Mike LaRotunda arrived at the car wash on Twentieth Street and Seventeenth Avenue, Miami, where Garcia worked.
They brought him down to Miami Police headquarters on an outstanding bench warrant.

At the station, Garcia was brought into an interview room and seated at a table with the two detectives and a female Spanish-language interpreter.

At 12:20
P.M
.
the detectives turned on a video recorder and asked Garcia about his background and how he had come to America.
Wearing sunglasses, a gray T-shirt, and a heavy silver chain, Garcia appeared relaxed, saying he was “confused” as to why he was there.

Over the next half hour, he answered Murphy’s general questions about his life in Miami, admitting to being in the country illegally.

Then Murphy casually said he wanted to play Garcia an audiotape, but would first have to read him his Miranda rights.

“We need to know if you recognize the voices on that tape,” Murphy said.
“Am I clear?”

“I don’t know, I’m confused,” Garcia replied.
“I need an attorney, because I don’t know what I’m being accused of.
I can’t sign this.”

Finally, he agreed to sign the Miranda rights form, and Murphy played him cassette tapes of his three telephone conversations with Cristobal Veliz in which Veliz implicated Garcia in Ben Novack Jr.’s murder.

“I just remembered that Alejandro Garcia committed a crime,” Veliz is heard saying on one tape.

After playing the tapes, Murphy showed Garcia photographs of people connected to the case, including Joel Gonzalez.
He also displayed surveillance pictures of Garcia and Gonzalez at the Rye Town Hilton on the morning of Ben Novack’s death.

Garcia was evasive, initially denying that he had ever been to New York.
Eventually, after seeing the irrefutable evidence of him at the Rye Town Hilton with Gonzalez, he admitted going to New York to do some painting and laboring for Carlos Veliz.

“We cleaned, we painted, we removed trash,” Garcia said.
“We cleaned the house.
My conscience is clear that I haven’t done anything.
I didn’t do anything to anybody.
I didn’t harm anybody.”

Murphy told Garcia he was sympathetic and knew he had only played a small part in the murder.
He said he was far more interested in the people behind it.

“We’re trying to help you, Alejandro,” Murphy said.
“Obviously there are other people who are blaming you.”

Finally, Murphy and LaRotunda left the interview room after more than an hour of questioning, and Detective Alison Carpentier came in.

“Alejandro, I’m Alison,” she told him through the interpreter.
“I’ll let you know what’s going to happen from here.
You’re gonna be booked on charges of murder.”

*   *   *

On December 18, Douglas Hoffman submitted his second curator’s report, asking for Judge Dale Ross’s permission to liquidate Novack Enterprises and file bankruptcy.

“The corporation is insolvent,” he wrote, “and could not be maintained as an ongoing concern.”

He noted that the company’s assets were approximately $350,000, and the outstanding debts on Ben Novack Jr.’s black American Express card were $769,763.81.
Additionally, there were claims for unpaid bills for the Batmobile totaling $18,650.00, as well as $50,000 for work on Ben’s yacht,
White Lightning
.

Convention Concept Unlimited staff Joe Gandy, Matthew Briggs, and May Abad were also asking for nearly $30,000 in unpaid wages, while Charlie Seraydar was owed $3,000.

“It was my position that the company had no value without Ben Novack,” curator Doug Hoffman later explained.
“And ultimately that’s what the court decided.”

*   *   *

On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the top-rated TV show
America’s Most Wanted
featured the Ben Novack Jr.
case and appealed for anyone with information to come forward.
Producers invited Narcy Novack to be interviewed, but she refused.

Several days earlier, Rye Brook Police had released the anonymous letter to the media, in a new attempt to break the case open.
It would be another year before they discovered it had been written by one of Narcy’s sisters.

Police chief Gregory Austin said that he had been initially skeptical of the letter, but during the ongoing investigation, it had proved uncannily accurate.

“What we found interesting in the letter,” said Chief Austin, “is that there were names in it at the time we were not aware of.
As we did our own investigation, we found that information to be true.”

Lead detective Terence Wilson, who was interviewed for the
America’s Most Wanted
segment, called the anonymous letter a key piece of evidence.
“We processed the letter for fingerprints, DNA,” he said, “to try and find out who the person was that wrote the letter.
Unfortunately we were not able to do so.”

Narcy’s criminal attorney Howard Tanner told
The Miami Herald
that the anonymous letter should never have been made public while the investigation was still ongoing.

“It is astonishing to me,” he said, “that the chief of Rye Brook police would give it to the press.”

*   *   *

On Monday, February 2, Broward County probate judge Charles M.
Greene suddenly handed Narcy Novack control of her husband’s multimillion-dollar estate.
In a dramatic ruling on the first day of the probate trial, the judge dismissed May Abad and Maxine Fiel’s lawsuits that she be disqualified under the “Killer Statute.”

Abad’s attorneys, Stephen McDonald and Bill Crawford, had asked the judge to dismiss their petition without prejudice, so they would still be able to challenge Ben Novack Jr.’s will.
Their case had fallen apart after attempts to subpoena a Rye Brook homicide detective to come to Florida and testify were shot down in case this compromised the ongoing criminal investigation.

After the ruling, Howard Tanner told reporters that May Abad’s attack on her mother was based on “rumor and innuendo,” and called it a “miscarriage of justice.”

“If it can happen to her, it can happen to anyone,” he said.

Under the ruling, Narcy could now dispose of all her husband’s assets, and inherit her late mother-in-law Bernice’s estate.

The following day, Narcy Novack’s three attorneys submitted bills to the estate for their services.
Her criminal lawyers Howard Tanner and Robert Trachman billed legal fees of $883,000 and $650,000, respectively.
Her probate attorney, Henry Zippay Jr., wanted $36,190 for his work on the case.

On Thursday, Judge Greene abruptly reversed his decision, seizing the estate back from Narcy.
His about-face came after he learned that a federal grand jury was about to convene in New York to investigate a broad criminal conspiracy involving Narcy Novack.

The judge had also based his new ruling on Narcy Novack’s request to use $1.6 million from her husband’s estate to pay off her legal team.
He questioned whether her criminal legal team’s work benefited the estate or just defended Narcy from possible criminal charges.

Judge Greene then appointed Doug Hoffman as the new personal representative for both the Ben Novack Jr.
and Bernice Novack estates.
He ordered that the estates’ liquid assets be placed in a court depository so they could not be accessed without court permission.

After the hearing, Tanner said that his client would fully cooperate in any investigation, as she had done from the start.
“Authorities have nothing but unsubstantiated rumors,” he told reporters.

*   *   *

Cristobal Veliz was becoming increasingly worried that Alejandro Garcia might cut a deal with the government.
He still did not know of Garcia’s arrest, and started calling Joel Gonzalez, asking where his friend was.

“I lost count of how many calls there were,” said Gonzalez.
“I didn’t tell him [about Garcia’s arrest] because Mr.
Garcia had told me not to tell him a thing.”

Finally, Veliz surmised that Garcia had returned to Nicaragua, and he decided to have him killed there so he couldn’t give up him or Narcy to the police.

In early 2010, Veliz contacted Juan Carlos Castillia, saying he needed to talk to his lover, Melvin Medrano, who had been deported to Nicaragua after the Bernice Novack job.

“Cristobal was worried and wanted to know about Alex [Garcia],” Castillia later testified.
“He was worried Alex would talk to the cops.
He wanted to … have him killed.”

On February 19, Castillo arranged a three-way telephone call between Veliz and Medrano, who agreed to make Alejandro Garcia disappear.

*   *   *

At the beginning of March, the FBI seized assets belonging to the Ben Novack Jr.
estate, under federal forfeiture regulations, in connection with allegations of financial fraud.
When Narcy attempted to take title of Ben’s Batmobile and several other antique cars, a federal judge signed sealed warrants preventing her.

The Miami Herald
reported that the sealed warrants meant that the FBI Violent Crimes Task Force now believed it had sufficient evidence to persuade a judge that Narcy Novack had been involved in illegal activity for financial gain.
The forfeiture was ordered under a seldom-used maritime and admiralty law.
Among the items seized were the Batmobile, a 1957 Ford Thunderbird, a 1970 Jaguar, a 1962 two-door Ford coupe, and a thirty-five-foot barge.

*   *   *

In early April, on the first anniversary of her sister Bernice’s death, eighty-four-year-old Maxine Fiel flew to Fort Lauderdale to try to get the case reopened.
She was accompanied by her husband, David, who was seriously ill, with only a few weeks to live.

“I refused to believe Bernice died naturally,” Maxine said.
“So we went to Florida and started investigating.”

When the Fiels arrived, they were met by Estelle Fernandez, who took them to Bernice Novack’s house and introduced them to Bernice’s friends and neighbors.

“They told me that Bernice said there were men in front of her house,” Maxine said.
“She was being stalked, which is what it says in the anonymous letter.”

During their visit, May Abad was particularly attentive, as she needed Maxine’s help to challenge Ben Novack Jr.’s will.
A few weeks earlier she had given birth to her third son, whom she had named Ben, in honor of her late stepfather.

“May knows how to charm you,” Maxine said later.
“She’s a good talker and can be very open.
She’ll tell you about her mother at the drop of a hat.
They don’t get on.
She thinks her mother did it.”

Maxine was surprised at how May continually referred to Ben Novack Jr.
as “Dad.”
“She never called him ‘Dad’ before,” Maxine said.
“Bernice would scream if she could hear it.
He was never that.”

While in Florida, Maxine gave an interview to
The Miami Herald
criticizing the way Fort Lauderdale Police had handled her sister’s death.

In a front-page story headlined “Two Bodies, Few Answers in Novack Family Mystery,” Maxine questioned why Fort Lauderdale Police had failed to take the anonymous letter seriously.
“The letter lays it all out.
She was murdered,” Fiel said.
“They tried to say she was confused, but she was not.”

Maxine labeled as rubbish the Fort Lauderdale detectives’ theory that Bernice had fallen and then tried to drive to hospital before changing her mind.
“My sister would never have gone out in a nightgown,” Fiel said.
“It seemed to me that she was being chased, not that she was falling around the house.
There was blood smeared everywhere, and her injuries were horrific.”