Narcy Novack was convicted in a federal court in White Plains, New York, in June 2012 of racketeering and related offenses arising from the deaths of her mother-in-law, Bernice Novack, and her husband, Ben Novack Jr., in 2009. The two deaths were separate events: Bernice Novack died in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on April 4, 2009, and Ben Novack died in Rye Brook, New York, on July 12, 2009. Prosecutors told the jury that Narcy Novack and her brother, Cristobal Veliz, arranged both killings and paid men to carry them out. Both defendants were sentenced to life in prison on December 17, 2012.
The verdict was not a simple finding of murder. The jury convicted both defendants on racketeering and related counts and acquitted both of Count Three, the charge of violent crime in aid of racketeering for the murder of Ben Novack. The racketeering counts on which they were convicted relate, among other things, to the murder of Bernice Novack. The convictions, and the sentences, were affirmed by the Second Circuit in 2015.
The precise counts matter in this case. Narcy Novack was found guilty of racketeering; racketeering conspiracy; four counts of violent crime in aid of racketeering relating to Ben Novack; conspiracy to commit interstate domestic violence and stalking; interstate domestic violence; stalking; interstate transportation of stolen property; and two counts of money laundering. Cristobal Veliz was found guilty of the same racketeering, violent-crime, domestic-violence and stalking counts, and of two counts of tampering with a witness. The United States Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York stated that the racketeering counts relate, among other things, to the murder of Bernice Novack, and that both defendants were acquitted of Count Three, which charged violent crime in aid of racketeering for the murder of Ben Novack.
The verdict therefore tied a conviction to the April event through the racketeering counts and acquitted on the one count that named a murder in the July event. The counts of interstate domestic violence and stalking, like the racketeering counts, carried a maximum of life in prison, and each defendant received a life term. No state murder charge in Florida or New York is on record.
Ben Novack Sr. built the Fontainebleau hotel in Miami Beach, which opened in 1954 and appeared in films. Bernice Novack and Ben Novack Sr. were its owners in its best years, and their son, Ben Novack Jr., grew up in that world. CBS News reported that the family lost the hotel in a bankruptcy in 1977, and that the son, who was often called Benji, went on to build a business of his own and became wealthy. His estate was later described as being worth several million dollars.
Narcisa Veliz was born in Ecuador. CBS News reported that she had worked as a dancer in Hialeah, Florida, and was a single mother when she met Ben Novack Jr.; they married in 1991, and ABC7 New York gave the same year. She later helped in his business. Narcy Novack was from Fort Lauderdale.
Her brother, Cristobal Veliz, lived in Brooklyn. Federal officials gave his age as 56 when he was arrested in July 2010 and 59 when he was sentenced in December 2012.
The government did not have to prove a motive, but it offered one at every stage, and the courts did not contradict it. Prosecutors said that Narcy Novack feared her husband would divorce her and that a prenuptial agreement would leave her shut out of the multimillion-dollar family estate. CBS News quoted the sentencing memorandum as describing "hatred, greed and vengeance," and at the verdict prosecutors described the crimes as driven by "jealousy, retribution and greed." At the sentencing, Judge Kenneth Karas said that greed and selfishness had led to two deaths.
Westchester County District Attorney Janet DiFiore, whose office worked with the federal prosecutors, said at the time of the 2012 verdict that the evidence showed a scheme driven by a wish to take millions of dollars from the Novack family.
Bernice Novack was 86. Her son was her only child. According to the federal prosecutors, a man named Alejandro Cesar Gutierrez Garcia, a hired man, killed her in Fort Lauderdale on April 4, 2009. Her death was not treated as a crime at first. CBS News reported that the Fort Lauderdale police and the Broward County medical examiner ruled it an accident.
For the next three months the ruling stood. It was reconsidered only because of what happened to her son.
Ben Novack Jr. was in Rye Brook, in Westchester County, New York, for a business convention that he and his wife were attending. He died there on the morning of July 12, 2009. Federal prosecutors named Joel Gonzalez as one of the hired men in the Rye Brook event and Denis Ramirez as the driver. Alejandro Cesar Gutierrez Garcia also took part, and he later pleaded guilty to interstate domestic violence resulting in the death of Ben Novack.
The Rye Brook police opened an inquiry. CBS News reported that they first said Narcy Novack was not a suspect and later described her as a person of interest because, in their words, she had been deceptive in questioning. ABC7 New York noted that her initial account was that she knew nothing about the death.
After Ben Novack's death, according to CBS News, Rye Brook investigators received an anonymous letter saying that Bernice Novack had also been murdered and naming people said to be responsible. Fort Lauderdale police did not find the letter credible at the time. CBS News also reported that Rye Brook police later took an account from one of the hired men, who said he had been hired to kill Bernice Novack as well. That account connected the two cases. In the months that followed, federal prosecutors joined the Westchester inquiry, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Fort Lauderdale authorities were later credited by the United States Attorney with assisting the case.
Alejandro Cesar Gutierrez Garcia pleaded guilty on June 28, 2010. The plea was to an information charging interstate domestic violence resulting in the death of Ben Novack. The plea came shortly before the indictment was unsealed, and he cooperated with the government.
On July 8, 2010, the United States Attorney's office announced that an indictment had been unsealed in White Plains. Narcy Novack, then 53, was arrested that morning in Florida and appeared in the federal court in Fort Lauderdale, where she was denied bail. Cristobal Veliz, then 56, and Denis Ramirez, then 36, were arrested in Brooklyn the same day and were due to appear in White Plains. Joel Gonzalez, then 25, of Miami, was named in the indictment and had not been arrested.
All four defendants were charged with conspiracy to commit interstate domestic violence and stalking, interstate domestic violence, and stalking. The maximum penalty was five years for the conspiracy and life for each of the other two counts. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said that the plot that led to the death of Ben Novack "was a family affair." The release added that the defendants were presumed innocent and that the charges were accusations.
Narcy Novack was held pending a bail hearing. CBS News reported that her lawyer said she would not contest being moved to New York. Veliz and Ramirez pleaded not guilty at their first appearance. Veliz was denied bail.
On April 5, 2011, the United States Attorney announced a superseding indictment against Narcy Novack and Cristobal Veliz, with the Southern District of New York noting that it now covered the deaths of both Ben Novack and Bernice Novack. The FBI's notice of the announcement listed racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy, interstate domestic violence, stalking and obstruction of justice against both; interstate transportation of stolen property and two counts of money laundering against Narcy Novack alone; and witness tampering against Veliz alone. By the time of the trial the indictment had grown to fifteen counts, which included the counts of violent crime in aid of racketeering.
Four men who took part in the events pleaded guilty before the trial. Their pleas and sentences were as follows.
Alejandro Cesar Gutierrez Garcia pleaded guilty on June 28, 2010. He was sentenced on September 12, 2013, in White Plains to 210 months in prison (17 years and six months) and was ordered to forfeit $25,500, the amount he had been paid. The United States Attorney said that his cooperation and his testimony at the 2012 trial helped lead to six convictions. Judge Karas imposed a term well below the sentencing guideline range because of that cooperation.
Joel Gonzalez pleaded guilty on January 20, 2011, to interstate domestic violence and stalking resulting in death and to conspiracy to commit both. CBS News reported that he was sentenced to ten years in prison at the end of May 2013.
Denis Ramirez pleaded guilty on February 17, 2011, to the same offenses as Gonzalez. He was sentenced to time served at the start of July 2013, after about two years in custody. A spokesman for the United States Attorney's office said his cooperation was considered at the sentencing.
Francisco Picado pleaded guilty on September 14, 2011, to being an accessory after the fact. His sentence is not on record.
The trial was held in White Plains before Judge Kenneth M. Karas and lasted nine weeks. The prosecutors were Assistant U.S. Attorneys Elliott B. Jacobson, Andrew Dember and Jeffrey Alberts, with a special assistant, Perry Perrone. Hired men who had pleaded guilty testified that Cristobal Veliz recruited them and passed on Narcy Novack's instructions, and that she had given them instructions of her own.
Cristobal Veliz testified in his own defense in early June 2012. He said that he "had nothing to do with it" and, in answer to his lawyer's questions, denied hiring the men, paying them or directing them. Narcy Novack did not testify.
The defense also suggested that Narcy Novack's daughter had been responsible, and noted that the daughter's sons would inherit under the family will if their grandmother were convicted. The daughter was never charged, denied any part in the deaths and called the theory "a joke," according to CBS News.
The jury began deliberating on a Monday in June after eight weeks of testimony. CBS News reported that on the third day the jurors asked for clarification of the charges and for transcripts of testimony. The verdict came in less than three days.
On June 20, 2012, Bharara and DiFiore announced the verdicts together. Both defendants were found guilty of racketeering and racketeering conspiracy, the four counts of violent crime in aid of racketeering relating to Ben Novack, conspiracy to commit interstate domestic violence and stalking, interstate domestic violence, and stalking. Narcy Novack alone was found guilty of interstate transportation of stolen property and two counts of money laundering. Cristobal Veliz alone was found guilty of two counts of tampering with a witness.
Both were acquitted of Count Three, which charged violent crime in aid of racketeering for the murder of Ben Novack. Reports of the verdict noted that the murder-in-aid-of-racketeering charge would have carried a mandatory life term, which the jury did not return. The remaining counts carried maximum terms of life in prison.
Bharara said the defendants would "now have to answer for the blood" of Ben Novack and his mother. DiFiore called the two defendants "modern day public enemies." Narcy Novack had waived her right to attend the reading of the verdict, as she did at the sentencing.
Judge Karas sentenced each defendant to life in prison on December 17, 2012, in White Plains. Narcy Novack, then 56, was also ordered to pay a $250,000 fine, to forfeit assets worth about $7 million, including bank accounts, real estate and vehicles, and, with her brother, to pay $105,515 to the family company. Veliz was sentenced to life and was ordered to forfeit assets as well.
At the sentencing the judge said that her greed and selfishness had led to two deaths. Of her absence from the courtroom he said, "At the end of the day she's a coward." Bharara said that the defendants had "blood on their hands" and would spend the rest of their lives answering for what they had done. DiFiore said that the pair would be behind bars for the rest of their natural lives.
CBS News reported in 2012 that Narcy Novack lost all rights to her husband's fortune on her conviction, and later that his estate remained tied up in a Florida court.
Both defendants appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (No. 13-914). The panel, Judges Pierre Leval, Gerard Lynch and Raymond Lohier, decided the appeal on August 19, 2015, and affirmed the convictions and sentences. In a published opinion, Judge Lynch held that soliciting others to harm a co-conspirator whom the defendants feared might cooperate with the authorities amounted to attempted corrupt persuasion under the witness-tampering statute, and that the evidence supported a reasonable likelihood that the communication the defendants feared would reach a federal officer. The court also ruled that a challenged instruction to the jury had not been plain error, and that the language about physical force in the jury charge had not amended the indictment. Other challenges were rejected in a separate summary order.
Courthouse News Service described the arguments made in the appeal: both defendants said they had been denied a hearing on their competence to stand trial; Narcy Novack said she lacked the intent to kill in one of the deaths; both challenged the sufficiency of the evidence. The Second Circuit rejected each of these, holding that Veliz's testimony did not make him incompetent to stand trial and that Narcy Novack's behavior in the courtroom reflected an attempt to manipulate the proceedings and not incompetence.
Several points were contested at trial or remain open.
The defense theory that Narcy Novack's daughter was responsible was put to the jury and was rejected by the verdict. The daughter was not charged and denied it.
The jury's acquittal on Count Three means that it did not return a guilty verdict on the one count that charged violent crime in aid of racketeering for the murder of Ben Novack. It convicted on the other counts, including the racketeering counts that relate to the murder of Bernice Novack. The prosecutors' motive is the account the government gave; Narcy Novack did not testify to answer it.
When she was charged, Narcy Novack denied the allegations.
The case drew wide press coverage and a 2015 television film. The Fontainebleau, which the Novack family had lost in 1977, was by then under other owners. CBS News later reported that Ben Novack Jr.'s estate remained tied up in a Florida court.
In December 2012 Narcy Novack was sentenced to life in federal prison, and in August 2015 the Second Circuit affirmed. Her present place of custody is not on record.
1991: Ben Novack Jr. marries Narcisa Veliz.
April 4, 2009: Bernice Novack, 86, dies in Fort Lauderdale; the death is first ruled an accident.
July 12, 2009: Ben Novack Jr. dies in Rye Brook, New York.
June 28, 2010: Alejandro Cesar Gutierrez Garcia pleads guilty to interstate domestic violence resulting in the death of Ben Novack.
July 8, 2010: Indictment unsealed in White Plains; Narcy Novack and Cristobal Veliz arrested.
January 20, 2011: Joel Gonzalez pleads guilty.
February 17, 2011: Denis Ramirez pleads guilty.
April 5, 2011: Superseding indictment announced, covering both deaths.
September 14, 2011: Francisco Picado pleads guilty to being an accessory after the fact.
June 20, 2012: Jury verdicts announced; both defendants acquitted of Count Three.
December 17, 2012: Life sentences for Narcy Novack and Cristobal Veliz.
May 2013: Joel Gonzalez sentenced to ten years.
July 2013: Denis Ramirez sentenced to time served.
September 12, 2013: Alejandro Cesar Gutierrez Garcia sentenced to 210 months.
August 19, 2015: Second Circuit affirms the convictions and sentences.