South-Asian man signed $2m real-estate deal hours before wife's murder in NJ
Washington, Aug 22 (ANI): A South-Asian man charged with Pakistani-origin wife's murder in New Jersey had reportedly signed a two million dollars real-estate deal just hours before his wife's murder. Less than two years ago, Kashif Parvaiz had persuaded a frail, older gay man to sign over to him his share of a Queens apartment building that is now about to be sold for more than nine million dollars, The New York Post reports. Property records show that wealthy heir Martin Ragusa, 74, of Manhattan, who has used a wheelchair since suffering a stroke a decade ago, had given Parvaiz his 30 percent share in the 114-unit building at 80-25 Parsons Boulevard in Hillcrest in December 2009. The paper quoted Ragusa's outraged stepmother as saying that the building is now under contract, set to be sold for 9.3 million dollars in a deal scheduled to close next month, effectively giving Parvaiz two million dollars of the proceeds. "We signed the contract Tuesday, and I think that's why Noorani got killed then," Marguerite Ragusa, said. Hours after the sale was under contract, Noorani was shot through the heart on a quiet New Jersey street, allegedly by Antionette "Soni" Stephen, Parvaiz's lover. Earlier, Noorani's sister had claimed that the victim had met Stephen several months ago, but her husband Kashif Parvaiz had lied that Stephen was simply a platonic "friend." "Noorani told me, 'I went with Kashif to Best Buy,' " the store in Cambridge, Mass., where Stephen worked, said Noorani's sister, Lubna Choudhry, adding: " He said, 'Don't tell them you're my wife because everyone knows [Soni] as my fiance-it's only for the discount.'" "Nazish talked about her. My sister told me 'Soni' was on the mailbox" of Parvaiz's Boston apartment while he and his wife had a long-distance relationship, with Noorani spending most of her time with their two kids at the homes of relatives in Brooklyn and New Jersey. She said [Soni] was 'my husband's friend. She's all right. I went to her home,' " she added. (ANI)
