A New Jersey man who is charged with conspiring with his girlfriend to kill his wife in 2011 on a residential street in Boonton during the Ramadan holiday, will finally go on trial early next year, Superior Court Judge Robert Gilson announced. Kashif Parvaiz, his lawyers and Morris County assistant prosecutors appeared before Gilson in Morristown, where they finalized details and got a jury selection start date of Jan. 20, the Daily Record reported. Testimony in the trial is expected to start on Feb. 2.
Parvaiz, now 29, is accused of arranging for his girlfriend, Antionette Stephen, now 30 of Billerica, Massachusetts, to shoot his wife, Nazish Noorani, and wound him with gunfire to make it appear they were attacked on the street. On Aug. 16, 2011, Parvaiz and Noorani, 27, were in Boonton visiting relatives for the Ramadan holiday. As they strolled down Cedar Street around 11 p.m., wheeling their three-year-old son in a carriage, they both were shot. Parvaiz had been living with his family in New York City but had moved alone to Boston, where he purported to be attending Harvard but secretly had a girlfriend, the Daily Record reported.
Parvaiz initially told police that a group of thugs approached him and his wife bellowing expletives and calling them “terrorists” but he eventually confessed to arranging for the killing. Stephen has pleaded guilty to participating in the murder and will testify against her Parvaiz at his trial.
Noorani’s brother, Kaleem Noorani, who has been a steadfast observer at all the pre-trial hearings and told the local media that he is relieved the trial will soon get under way. “Finally, it’s starting after three years,” Noorani’s brother, Kaleem Noorani, told The Star-Ledger. “It’s been a long time. But as long as we get closure, it’s good,” he added.
Parvaiz faces two separate indictments for attempted murder and witness tampering, based on acts he allegedly committed while in the Morris County jail awaiting trial between August 2011 and May 2013. Gilson has ruled that those cases are to be tried separately after the murder trial is finished.
Parvaiz is also charged with three counts of attempted murder in connection with a letter he allegedly sent in October 2012, requesting the killings of Kaleem Noorani and another brother of the victim, Fahim Noorani, along with another former girlfriend, Yelena Belorusets. Parvaiz is accused of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, five weapons charges, child endangerment, child abuse and hindering apprehension in connection with the 2011 incident.
The couple’s toddler son was present in his stroller when his mother was shot to death. Two other weapons charges, which involved guns found in Parvaiz’s car that could not be linked to the Boonton incident, were dismissed.
Gilson told Parvaiz that if he is convicted on all the charges in the trial, he would face a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole, plus 78 years.
Noorani and Parvaiz were living apart at the time of the homicide but were still married, though he had claimed to Antionette Stephen they were divorced under Islamic law. Noorani and the children lived with Parvaiz’s parents in Brooklyn; he purported to be a student at Harvard and had moved to Boston, but Harvard officials have said they have no record of him.