The Prince of Paradise

by John Glatt

  “Ben was one of the top five Batman collectors of the world,” said Fleming. “It’s a very small group of people. They all know each other. They’re all extremely upscale people with a lot of disposable income. As far as dealers go, we always refer to them as “shoppers” and not “collectors.”

  Novack frequently called his favorite dealers from airports, while in transit to or from a convention. He often seemed lonely, wanting to chat about important new Batman items coming up for sale.

  “I spoke to him tons on the phone,” said Kelly, who, in England, was five hours ahead of Ben. “He used to phone me when he was on a flight going to conventions, mainly because he was flying at odd times and I used to keep very odd hours. It was mainly related to Batman collecting, because fanatics will only talk about the sort of things that interest them.”

  On one occasion, Scot Fleming asked Ben why he had started his Batman collection, but Novack was strangely evasive. “It’s very nostalgic for a lot of these guys,” said Fleming, “‘When I was four my Dad and I watched the show,’ or ‘I had comic books.’ I have to assume it was nostalgic for Ben, because of the theme of most of the stuff he bought. But he never shared any of that.”

  * * *

  In May 2001, after twenty-six years as a Miami Beach Police reservist, Ben Novack Jr. underwent a forty-hour recertification course at the Miami Dade Community College. He was teamed up with his good friend Officer Pete Matthews, who was in the same class.

  Now nearing retirement, Matthews, who had known Ben Jr. since he was a child, immediately noticed how “despondent” he appeared to be. One day over lunch, he asked him what was wrong.

  “He said [Narcy] had been unfaithful,” recalled Matthews. “She had [had] a relationship and he had found out about it. It was devastating, but he was working through it.”

  Matthews asked if he and Narcy were seeing a marriage counselor, but Novack said no.

  After observing his male chauvinism over the years, Matthews had never seen Ben Jr. show the slightest emotion over any woman before.

  “I don’t know the sequence of events,” Matthews said. “Thinking back, it’s unusual, because the kid that I knew would have just said, ‘Forget about it.’ So I knew he was troubled by her [infidelity].”

  * * *

  Over the next few months, Ben and Narcy Novack’s relationship spiraled downward. Although they put on a good face at conventions, they were constantly bickering. And their arguments behind closed doors were getting increasingly more violent.

  August 16, 2001, was their tenth wedding anniversary, but there was little to celebrate. Ben Jr. now wanted out of the marriage, as he felt it was threatening his business. He was also still reeling from the shock of discovering that Narcy had been unfaithful, even though he himself kept several mistresses.

  “He had all the women you could imagine,” said Joe Gandy. “With that kind of money, you can imagine the women he had, and every one of them was there for money. There was no love. Narcy, too, you know. She was a titty dancer when he met her over in the strip club.”

  Narcy had long grown accustomed to her husband’s extravagantly wealthy lifestyle, and to having everything she desired. She loved the good life and had no intention of ever losing it.

  “Narcy wanted the red carpet in front of her feet,” said Joe Gandy. “She thought she was a Novack, just like Ben, who was a big name with a lot of power.”

  Narcy was well aware that under the 1991 prenuptial agreement she had signed, even though the marriage had now survived a decade, she would still receive only $65,000 plus expenses were she and Ben to divorce. It appeared she was determined to leave with far more than that.

  * * *

  In January 2002, Miami Beach’s prestigious Ocean Drive magazine carried a lavish fifteen-page salute to the glory days of the Fontainebleau hotel. Entitled “Swinging at the Fontainebleau—The Rat Pack, the Mob, and Dazzling Dames,” the article had the full cooperation of Bernice Novack, who had even made available select photographs from her private collection.

  Among the colorful photos was one of Ben Novack Sr. with Jerry Lewis, one of him with Irving Berlin, and one of a glamorous Bernice at a Fontainebleau grand ball with Joan Crawford. In another treasured shot, the Novacks share a joke with Frank Sinatra and Walter Winchell. On a more sinister note, one photo shows Ben Sr. and Bernice posing with powerful Chicago Mob boss Sam Giancana at his daughter Antoinette’s wedding.

  The seventy-nine-year-old former First Lady of the Fontainebleau was interviewed for the article, still insisting that Morris Lapidus, who had died a year earlier, had had nothing to do with designing the Fontainebleau.

  “Ben designed the Fontainebleau while sitting on the toilet,” she said defiantly.

  When the article was published, Bernice was so delighted that she handed out signed copies to her closest friends. She also visited the Fontainebleau for the first time in many years.

  “She went in, and everybody remembered her,” said Estelle Fernandez, who accompanied her that day. “And she said hello to everyone. ‘Oh, you’re still working. I’m glad.’ They all still loved her.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  “I CAN HAVE YOU KILLED ANYTIME I WANT”

  On Saturday, June 8, 2002, Ben and Narcy Novack went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant and then went home and retired to bed. At 1:00 A.M. on Sunday, three armed men suddenly burst into their bedroom. As Ben went for the Smith & Wesson handgun he always kept by the bed, he heard Narcy shout out, “Look out! He has a gun on his nightstand.”

  He was then pinned to the bed by one of the men, while another put a pillow over his face, trying to asphyxiate him. The third snatched his gun, hitting him hard across his head with it. His arms were then shackled in front of him with his own police handcuffs and he was blindfolded with a surgical eye patch.

  As Narcy left to disable their elaborate house alarm system, Ben was tied to the heavy metal frame of a leather chair with thick ropes. Narcy then threatened to cut off Ben’s penis and throw it in the canal behind their home. She was referring to what Lorena Bobbitt (who had also been born in Equador) had done to her husband John.

  The men then threatened to kill him if he spoke or even moved. He was hit over the head again with his own gun, to make the point.

  Over the next twenty-five hours, while Ben was held in the bedroom at gunpoint, Narcy Novack ransacked the house. She seized $370,000 in cash kept in a safe under the stairs, as well as taking Novack family heirlooms, jewelry, antiques, firearms, important business documents, items of Batman memorabilia, and various firearms. She also cleared her closets, packing up all her clothes and her hundreds of pairs of designer shoes, and gathered together her toiletries and perfumes.

  Helplessly bound to a chair hour after hour, Ben Novack Jr. was able to peer under his blindfold and see his attackers, who took turns guarding him. During the attack, he heard Narcy make several phone calls to an ex-boyfriend from the Follies strip club named Leo, who had just gotten out of jail. He also overheard one of the attackers mention the name of a well-known organized crime boss whom they appeared to be working for.

  Periodically, he was allowed to relieve himself in a disposable urinal to the side of the chair.

  At 7:00 P.M. on Sunday evening—eighteen hours into his ordeal—he heard Narcy call her yoga teacher, Rada Sevakananda, who also looked after their neighbors’ pet dogs. She asked her to come straight over to help pack up some boxes, which she was taking to a warehouse.

  Soon afterward, Novack heard the woman arrive and the sound of boxes being packed and sealed with a tape gun. Sometime later he heard the men loading boxes into a diesel truck parked outside.

  Finally, as Narcy removed Ben’s blindfold, he pleaded with her to release him. She said she would call a neighbor in a few minutes to do so.

  Then she looked her husband straight in the face and told him, “If I can’t have you, then no one will have you. The men that helped me … will come back and finish the job. I
can have you killed anytime I want … you’re not dead now because I stopped them.”

  * * *

  At around 2:30 A.M. Monday morning, Prince Mongo, who was in Memphis, Tennessee, received a frantic call from Rada. After calming down, she said Narcy had called an hour earlier asking her to return to the Novack house to move some furniture out of the second-floor hallway, so the maid wouldn’t throw it away.

  When Rada pointed out that it was the middle of the night, Narcy insisted it must be done immediately.

  “So Rada went over,” said Mongo, “and when she went upstairs, the bedroom door was open. Ben was tied up by the door with duct tape, looking at Rada. She went ballistic. She didn’t know what to do. And Ben was shaking his head and his eyes were bulging.”

  After Rada pulled the tape off his mouth, Novack told her to cut the rope tying him to the chair. Once he was free, he telephoned his mother, asking her to drive over immediately. He then begged Rada not to call the police, saying the men would come back and kill him if she did.

  Rada waited until Bernice Novack arrived before fleeing the house and calling Mongo.

  * * *

  The first person Ben Novack Jr. called after being set free was his eighty-year-old mother. Then he called Charlie Seraydar.

  “He tells me that he’s just been robbed in a home invasion robbery,” remembered Seraydar. “And he is scared out of his fucking mind. He’s screaming, ‘They stole my money! They stole $440,000!’”

  Seraydar told him to calm down and call the police. When Novack said he could not, the former Miami Beach cop asked why. “He said, ‘I think my wife was involved,’” said Seraydar. “I said, ‘Get the fuck out of here. What makes you think that?’”

  “He goes, ‘Well, when the guys busted through the bedroom door, she said, ‘Look out, he has a gun on his nightstand.’ I go, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’”

  Seraydar called a retired cop friend of his called Fred Walder, asking him to go straight over to 2501 Del Mar Place and give Ben a gun to protect himself.

  At 1:59 A.M. on Monday, while waiting for his mother to arrive, Ben Novack Jr. called the Fort Lauderdale Police dispatcher, to report the incident. He informed her that he was an officer with the Miami Beach Police Department. The dispatcher said someone would get back to him.

  “He stated his wife came into the residence with 3 armed men,” read the official report, “robbed him and left him tied for approximately 25 hours.”

  Then Novack called Hollywood police chief Jim Scarberry, asking what to do next, without mentioning Narcy’s involvement.

  “He was very scared,” said Scarberry. “He said he had been a victim of a home invasion robbery. That the people had told him not to call the cops or they’d come back and kill him. He didn’t want a bunch of Fort Lauderdale cops in uniforms and cars rushing to his house.”

  Novack asked Scarberry to use his contacts with Fort Lauderdale Police to explain the situation called with the utmost discretion.

  “He assured me the bad guys had left,” said Scarberry, “and that there was no safety issue for the cops. So I kind of coordinated that through our detective bureau.”

  Soon afterward, Sergeant Salters of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department called Ben Novack Jr. to follow up on his complaint. In the meantime, Bernice Novack had arrived, and the officer could hear her talking in the background.

  “[He] refused to allow a marked unit to respond to his residence,” said Salters. “While I was speaking with him I could hear him [discuss] the return of his money.”

  Novack told him that the men responsible for the home invasion were still watching his house, and would know if police responded.

  Salter said, “I explained to him that we did not have any detectives in unmarked cars working at this hour that could respond to his location. I asked if I could call him back, and he agreed.”

  A few minutes later, Sergeant Salters received a call from Police Chief Scarberry, who had been referred by Dispatch. Scarberry informed Salters that Novack’s father had once owned the famous Fontainebleau hotel, adding that he had known Ben Jr. for years.

  “I explained to Chief Scarberry the dilemma Mr. Novak [sic] has placed us in,” Salters later wrote in his report, “when he is making these allegations and does not want a marked unit to respond. I informed him I would offer Mr. Novak [sic] the option of making his report via landline.”

  After the call, Sergeant Salters called the Miami Beach Police Department, verifying that Novack was a reserve officer and known to them. Then he instructed an Officer Johnson to call Ben Novack Jr. and take his statement.

  “Ben advised [that] his wife Narcy [had] orchestrated the robbery, with the unknown males,” Officer Johnson later wrote in his official report on what the police referred to as a “suspicious incident.”

  Novack then gave the officer a detailed account of his twenty-five-hour ordeal, calling it “well organized.”

  “The suspects … took turns guarding him,” he wrote, “while removing jewelry, documents and money and various other items. He claims total loss is approximately a million dollars.”

  Officer Johnson reported Ben’s claim that the home invaders had threatened to kill him if he even spoke or made a move, and that periodically he was hit on the head with a gun.

  “When the suspects were leaving,” Johnson wrote, “Ben plead for his life and requested to his wife to be released. Ben claims Narcy called a neighbor to come over in 10 minutes to help her move some items. When she came over she found Ben tied up.”

  The officer also reported that Novack had refused any medical treatment for cuts on his mouth and badly bruised arms, saying there would not be much forensic evidence to be found. He also insisted that no mention be made of the incident over the police radio, in case his assailants were listening.

  “[He] urged that forensics cannot respond,” Johnson reported, “because no marked vehicles can be observed for fear that his life could still be in danger. He claims someone is still watching his property.”

  Powerless to do anything while Novack was refusing to allow officers to come to the house, Officer Johnson could only give him a case number for any subsequent investigation.

  “Due to Ben’s request for police not to respond at his home,” Johnson wrote, “I have no physical observation to substantiate his claim as to the events that occurred other than the information taken by phone.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  FALLOUT

  At 8:00 A.M. on Monday, Detective Steve Palazzo of Fort Lauderdale Police Department’s Violent Crimes and Robbery Division began his shift. As soon as he walked into police headquarters, his superior, Sergeant Patrick French, assigned him to the Ben Novack Jr. home invasion, handing him a copy of Salters’s report.

  “Ben had refused to allow any officers or marked patrol cars to come to his house,” said now-retired detective Palazzo. “So I guess it was his choice to wait until a detective was available.”

  Detective Palazzo called Novack, who immediately informed him that he was a Miami Beach Reserve Police officer with almost thirty years’ experience. He also stated that he was “close personal friends” with several police chiefs and “very well connected” in the local business community.

  “He insisted that something should be done immediately to locate and arrest his wife,” Detective Palazzo later wrote in his report. “He insisted that police in plainclothes and unmarked vehicles should respond to his residence but that we must not make our presence known to anyone in the area as the culprits may still be watching his house.”

  At 10:00 A.M., Detective Palazzo and Sergeant French drove up outside 2501 Del Mar Place in an unmarked police car. A disheveled Ben Novack Jr. came to the front door and let then in. He then brought them into a small room, where his elderly mother was waiting.

  Palazzo immediately noticed that Novack had cut lips and bruising to his face. There were also red marks on his wrists.

  “He had been bound,” said Pala
zzo, “there was no question about it. And he had been struck in the face. That was obvious.”

  Novack pointed to a floor safe, which was open and empty. Then he led the detectives upstairs to the master bedroom, as his mother followed.

  “We noted a reclining chair,” Palazzo wrote later, “surrounded by ropes and binding items … a pair of handcuffs hanging from the left side of the chair.”

  Although it was daylight, the curtains were closed, bathing the bedroom in darkness. There was a small table with food on it next to the reclining chair, and a stool behind that.

  Novack said the pillows and top bed sheet had been taken, and he showed them Narcy’s large bedroom closet, which was bare except for some shoeboxes and hangers.

  “She obviously took a lot of her belongings,” Palazzo noted. “All her clothes were gone, but his stuff was all still there.”

  Novack then brought them into the en suite bathroom, pointing out that Narcy’s marble countertop to the left of the faucet was bare, while Ben’s side was full of his toiletries.

  They then went into a room next door, which was being used as an office. Inside were several metal file cabinets, with drawers missing.

  “He told us that these cabinets contained all of the files and documents for his business,” Palazzo wrote. “He [had] had $440,000.00 in cash in the safe which was company funds [and] she had no rights to the money.”

  When the detective asked if Novack had documents to prove the money had existed, Novack said no, as it was his company’s petty cash.

  “Novack explained that his father was a former owner of the Fountain Blue [sic] Hotel in Miami,” Palazzo wrote. “His father is deceased.”

  Novack then explained the setup of his company, saying he was the CEO and his mother the vice president. “His wife is not a corporate partner,” Palazzo wrote, “and has no official standing in the company, but does work with him for the business. He stated that she has no legal rights to take the documents. That she had no rights to the money.”