Widow Set Up Miami Hotel Heir’s Brutal Murder
Image by getty images
Seamy Side: The brutal killing of Ben Novack Jr., whose father owned Miami Beach?s famed Fontainebleau resort, has led to a nasty family feud over his fortune. His ex-stripper widow was found guilty of setting up the murder. Image by getty images
A Miami ex-stripper was reportedly found guilty of helping set up the murder of her hotel heir husband in Westchester County and his mother in Florida in a bid to snatch the family fortune.
Narcy Novack Image by broward county sheriff
In a split verdict, Narcy Novack of Fort Lauderdale was convicted of some counts related to the savage 2009 beatings of Ben Novack Jr. in a Rye, N.Y., hotel room and Bernice Novack at her Fort Lauderdale home, the New York Post reported.
The Novacks were millionaire heirs of Ben Novack Sr., who founded Miami Beach’s opulent Fontainebleau Hotel.
Narcy Novack and her brother, Cristobal Veliz, of New York City, were acquitted of murder in aid of racketeering, which would have carried a mandatory life sentence. They were convicted of racketeering, domestic violence, stalking, money-laundering and witness-tampering.
Prosecutors said Narcy Novack feared that her husband might divorce her and cut her out of his will.
The sordid trial got even worse when Narcy Novack tried to blame her own daughter, May Abad, in Ben Novack’s killing, the paper said.
Ben Novack Jr.
The squalid business began on July 12, 2009, when Novack Jr.’s body was discovered, bound and bludgeoned, his eyes slit by a knife, in Room 453 of the Hilton Westchester in Rye Brook, N.Y.
George Venizelos of the FBI’s New York field office said: “The killing of Ben Novack was not a spur of the moment crime of passion. It was the end game of considerable planning.”
The day after Novack Jr.’s body was found, investigators questioned Narcy Novack extensively. They got an earful, including accounts of sex games between the two, a sometimes volatile marriage, and her late husband’s obsession with Batman, and with pornography involving amputees. They considered the possibility of sex games that turned brutal having caused his death, but ultimately they concluded that Narcy Novack had conspired to set up the slaying.
Three months earlier, Bernice Novack had been killed in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., a death initially attributed to a series of accidental falls. But last year a federal indictment charged Narcy Novack with arranging that murder, as well.
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