The Prince of Paradise

by John Glatt

  Fernandez then suggested Bernice set up a trust fund for her son, so he’d receive the money over a period of time. When Bernice told Ben about her plan, he was furious, ordering her not to, saying he and Narcy had two big mortgages to pay off.

  “Well, Bernice never ever could make up her own mind,” said Fernandez. “She had this quirk and just couldn’t make a decision. So she drew up the will, leaving the money to the Jewish Federation. She was going to have an attorney do it, but never got around to it. And it just lay there on her desk.”

  * * *

  Over that summer, Ben Novack Jr. fell in love with his new mistress, Rebecca Bliss. Although he rarely visited her apartment for sex, they would speak every day on the phone, developing a serious relationship.

  “[I was] his girlfriend,” said Bliss. “I loved him. We talked every day about everything going on in our lives. He was giving me everything.” In one example of his largesse, he bought her $10,000 in digital musical equipment, which he installed in the apartment so she could start a new career as a DJ.

  “He wanted me to do that instead of escorting,” Bliss explained. “I did it for friends.”

  Later, Bliss would testify that Ben had asked her to be patient, saying he intended to divorce Narcy so they could be together.

  * * *

  In late August, Narcy Novack began to suspect that her husband was having an affair. Looking for evidence, she searched through his personal papers and found several credit card receipts slips for furniture.

  “She got suspicious and called Bernice over,” said Estelle Fernandez. “So they both went through his stuff and found out he was buying furniture for an apartment.”

  When Narcy confronted Ben with the evidence, he admitted to having a girlfriend but refused to give her up.

  “Narcy was catching on that he was a whore hoffer,” said Joe Gandy, “There were more whores than she could have guessed, and she was driving him crazy. So he filed for divorce.”

  Said Gandy, “I told him, ‘Well, you sleep with a bunch of fucking rattlesnakes in a tank, you’re going to get bit.’”

  May Abad later claimed to have first discovered the incriminating receipts, asking her stepfather about them. Ben told her that he wanted a divorce, but promised to take care of her and her two teenage sons.

  “My mother was very jealous,” Abad told Miami Herald reporter Julie Brown. “He had a girlfriend on the side close to 40. It’s part of my dad’s life.”

  Charlie Seraydar believes there were other reasons Ben wanted to leave Narcy, and it wasn’t to do with other women. “No, those were just extra-curriculum,” said Seraydar. “But he was preparing to file for divorce, because things were getting ugly at home.”

  Ben and Narcy were now constantly arguing in the office, where it was an open secret that she had caught him cheating. May Abad later recalled how her mother would often light candles, as part of a voodoo ritual, after their fights.

  “Somebody was going to kill somebody,” said Joe Gandy. “We all knew it.”

  * * *

  After discovering that Ben was planning to divorce her for Rebecca Bliss, Narcy Novack decided to have them both arrested. In early September she secretly contacted the Miami/Palm Beach office of the FBI saying she had information about her husband’s illegal activities regarding an immigration fraud scheme.

  On September 8 she met with FBI Special Agent John Wiley at a Fort Lauderdale coffee shop. She informed him that Ben was using his convention company as a front for arranging sham marriages. The following weekend, a Vancouver-based Iranian businessman was bringing in a number of energy soft drink distributors to a convention her husband was organizing at the Flamingo hotel in Las Vegas.

  “The attendees from Canada would disappear in sham marriages,” said Agent Wiley. “She stated that her husband Ben had set up two women in South Florida to be part of the sham marriages [and] was providing the services. He was also involved with prostitutes in the USA.”

  Narcy also gave the agent Rebecca Bliss’s name and address, saying her husband had set up the former exotic dancer in an apartment with the sole purpose of Bliss’s marrying a foreign convention attendee. She named a second woman, Shandra Lopez of West Palm Beach, claiming that Ben had also arranged a sham marriage for her.

  At the end of the meeting, Narcy offered to discreetly provide more incriminating information against her husband, but insisted she remain anonymous.

  “She said that if I call I should pretend to be from a mortgage company about financing,” said Special Agent Wiley. “She feared retaliation if anyone found out she was talking to law enforcement.”

  A few days later, at a second meeting with the FBI, Narcy Novack made further claims about her husband’s purported criminal activities. She told an agent that Joe Gandy was supplying Ben with “baseball-sized” supplies of cocaine. She also claimed that Ben and his friend and business partner Jerry Calhoun used a private airplane to make questionable trips back and forth to Mexico.

  FBI agents duly filed reports about Narcy’s claims, but they were not deemed credible, and no action was taken.

  A month later, prior to boarding a Continental Airlines flight home after a convention in Puerto Vallarta, Narcy informed Mexican customs officials that Ben was traveling with $10,000 in illegal American cash. She told the Federales how her husband often masqueraded as a retired Miami Beach police officer, when he had never worked in law enforcement. She questioned how he could afford their extravagant jet-setting lifestyle, inferring he was involved in illegal activities.

  As a result, when Ben and Narcy landed at Houston Airport, Ben was stopped by customs officials. Eventually, after hours of questioning, he was allowed to leave after U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers verified that he truly was a retired police officer with a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

  A couple of weeks later, Narcy Novack was interviewed by FBI agents regarding her claims to Mexican customs agents, which she vehemently denied ever making.

  * * *

  In January 2009 a furious Narcy Novack made a call to the cell phone Ben had given Rebecca Bliss. Narcy demanded Bliss stop seeing her husband and offered her $10,000 never to speak to him again.

  “She said she was Ben Novack’s wife,” Bliss recalled, “and did I know he was married. Just a lot of yelling.… She told me there were a lot of girls and I wasn’t the only one.

  “She mentioned that she knew I had a daughter in Michigan and she would help me fund her and give me money if I leave Ben. I said no.”

  When Bliss hung up, Narcy called back immediately.

  “She was just yelling, ‘We’re not going to get a divorce.’ There were more girls and he doesn’t love me. She said that if she couldn’t have him, no one could.”

  After Bliss stopped answering her calls, Narcy began investigating the former porn star, tracking down telephone numbers and e-mail addresses for Bliss’s mother and an old boyfriend. She also obtained details about the Marina Bay apartment Ben had set Bliss up in, even contact numbers for the Marina Bay staff.

  Then in mid-January, the complex’s assistant property director, Joyce Errica, received a call from a Mrs. Novack informing her that her husband, Ben, had died and would no longer be paying Rebecca Bliss’s rent.

  Errica told her she did not know what she was talking about, and suggested she send her a copy of Ben Novack’s death certificate.

  “She said she would bring in the death certificate, and she hung up,” said Errica. “She never called again.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  A FAMILY PLOT

  Investigators believe Narcy Novack now decided to make good on her 2002 threat to murder her husband, fearing she would lose everything in a divorce. Under Ben’s 1991 prenuptial agreement, Narcy would receive only $65,000, but she wanted the whole of Ben Jr.’s $7.2 million fortune. So she recruited her elder brother Cristobal Veliz to help her.

  First, however, they cold-bloodedly decided to kill Bernice Novack, who was e
xecutor of Ben’s estate, ensuring that everything would go to Narcy after Ben was disposed of.

  To help plan the attacks with Cristobal, Narcy bought an old flip phone from a neighbor’s brother for $200, which had an unlimited Boost Mobile monthly plan. She explained to the seller that she wanted a phone that Ben couldn’t access or track.

  Over the next few months she would use her secret cell phone number 954-816-2089 to brief Cristobal on Bernice’s and Ben’s habits and movements. Cristobal would talk to Mi Niña (My Little One), the family’s pet name for his sister, for hours at a time.

  In December 2008, Narcy’s brother drove to Miami with a teenage family friend called Francisco Picado, to make contacts and recruit some hired hands for the killings. Fifty-five-year-old Veliz had first met Picado in 2003, when the boy was twelve, after renting a room in his mother’s house at 1499 Jefferson Avenue, Brooklyn. As Picado grew up, Veliz, who worked in a bakery, had become a father figure to him.

  Now eighteen, Picado had recently started dating a Miami high school student named Keyling Sanchez, and invited Veliz to drive down with him to visit her, and thus save on expenses. Veliz, who lived in Philadelphia, was only too happy to go.

  “We would go to be with women,” Veliz explained.”I would have fun with women down there.”

  In Miami, Veliz and Picado both stayed at the home of Keyling’s mother, Tomassa Ortez, at North West Fourth Terrace, which was also used as a day care center. During their stay, seventeen-year-old Keyling introduced Veliz to several women.

  Veliz started making contacts by befriending several of Keyling’s family friends. These included twenty-seven-year-old Melvin Medrano, who owned a local car wash; his lover José Carlos Castillia, and a Nicaraguan friend of Keyling’s brother Luis named Cesar Mairena.

  While in Florida, Cristobal also spent time with Narcy in Fort Lauderdale, and investigators believe that this is when they took their plot to the next stage.

  * * *

  On Monday, February 2, Cristobal Veliz made a second trip to Miami, driving Francisco Picado’s Nissan Murano. Over the last few days, he had been in close contact with Narcy on her secret cell phone, and prosecutors believe that she had now given him the go-ahead to make preparations for the murder of her mother-in-law, Bernice Novack.

  As soon as they arrived in Miami, Veliz withdrew $750 from his account at the Bank of America to cover expenses. He then contacted Melvin Medrano, offering him $2,500 to participate in the attack on Bernice Novack.

  On Wednesday, Veliz asked Francisco Picado to drive him to Fort Lauderdale, directing him to a gas station near Las Olas Boulevard, just a couple of blocks away from Ben and Narcy Novack’s compound. They parked across the street, and Veliz explained that they were waiting for Bernice Novack’s Infiniti to pass by.

  “He wanted to check the route that her car would take on her way home,” said Picado.

  Suddenly they saw Bernice’s tan Infiniti emerge into Las Olas Boulevard; they followed it. But a few minutes later they lost it in traffic, and Veliz instructed his young friend to turn back to Miami. On the drive back, Picado asked Veliz why he needed to know the old lady’s route home.

  “He said that somewhere along it they were going to [hit] the car,” Picado later testified. “They would go out and help her and then assault her.”

  Picado then asked why Veliz would want to beat up the old lady, and Veliz replied that his sister was paying for it and wanted Bernice “hospitalized.” He explained how Narcy hated how Bernice treated her, and how she told her son, Ben, to force Narcy into sex. Veliz also claimed that Ben had fitted his sister with breast implants while a doctor had been treating her for a broken nose.

  Two days later, Veliz telephoned Cesar Mairena, whom he had met in December, offering him fifty dollars to drive him to Fort Lauderdale. They met up at Keyling Sanchez’s house, where Veliz was staying, and on their way north they stopped at a gas station to fill up Mairena’s white Impala.

  On arrival in Fort Lauderdale, Veliz directed Mairena to Bernice Novack’s house at North East Thirty-Seventh Drive, but they got lost and stopped at a gas station to buy a map. While there, Veliz called Narcy on his cell phone for instructions on how to proceed.

  “He said ‘Mi Niña’ a couple of times,” said Mairena, “so I knew it was a lady.”

  After getting clarification from Narcy, Veliz directed Mairena to the Coral Ridge County Club, where they drove past Bernice’s house several times, looking for her car.

  “He wanted to see what it was like,” Mairena explained. “It was a nice middle-class neighborhood.”

  Mairena drove up and down NE Thirty-Seventh Drive for a few minutes, before Veliz told him to drive back to Miami.

  The next day, a Saturday, Cristobal paid Mairena another fifty dollars to drive him back to Fort Lauderdale.

  “I drove by the house, like the first time,” Mairena said. “Then we turned around again.”

  During the drive back to Miami, Veliz asked Mairena if he would be willing to hit an old lady in the face for money. “I told him no,” Mairena later testified. “He told me he was trying to [hurt] the lady, because she supposedly did some harm to his sister. He wanted to pay her back.”

  Later that day, Veliz and Picado drove back to Brooklyn, arriving on Sunday morning. After spending a few hours at his fiancée Laura Law’s Brooklyn apartment, Veliz drove with her to Florida for their annual family vacation.

  * * *

  The following Wednesday, February 11, Cesar Mairena got a call from Cristobal Veliz asking him to make a third trip to Fort Lauderdale. Once again they met at Keyling’s house, but this time Veliz directed Mairena to a car wash at a nearby Chevron gas station.

  “Mr. Veliz said he was going to meet somebody who was going to go along with us,” Mairena said. “He told me that he had got somebody to do the [old lady] harm.”

  After collecting the man from the car wash, Mairena drove them to Fort Lauderdale, and Veliz told him stop at a mall, as he had to buy something. While Mairena waited in the car, Veliz and the man went into a sports store, emerging a few minutes later with a bag of powerwalking weights for the attack.

  They then proceeded to NE Thirty-Seventh Drive, where Veliz pointed out Bernice’s house to the attacker, whom he never referred to by name. Veliz ordered him to wait in the bushes by the old lady’s house and “hit her in the face and hurt her” when she came home.

  After dropping the man off by the house, Mairena waited with Veliz at a nearby strip mall, where he called his sister to see if Bernice had left the office yet.

  “Mr. Veliz told me the guy was going to do it,” Mairena said. “Then we waited, and the sun was going down.”

  After it got dark, the man from the car wash walked nervously into the strip mall parking lot and got into the car. As they drove off, Veliz asked the man if he had assaulted Bernice Novack. The man explained that he’d been spotted by neighbors looking suspicious, so he had taken off.

  The next afternoon, Cristobal Veliz met Mairena for another attempt at assaulting Bernice Novack. Soon after he arrived at Sanchez’s house, Melvin Medrano pulled up in a Honda Accord with another man Mairena had never seen before.

  After Veliz gassed up both cars, he and Mairena set off for Fort Lauderdale, followed by Medrano and his friend. During the trip, Veliz was in constant touch with Narcy, updating her on what was happening. That day, he made sixteen calls to his sister’s secret cell phone.

  At around 5:00 P.M., they arrived at NE Thirty-Seventh Drive and Veliz led Medrano and his friend past Bernice’s house before both men parked the two cars a block away, by a bridge. Medrano and the other man then got out and walked back to the house, hiding behind some trash cans by the garage to wait for Bernice to come out.

  Fifteen yards away, eighteen-year-old Drew Offerdahl was practicing piano in the living room of his family’s home when he saw the two men sneaking through an alley toward Bernice Novack’s garage. He called to his father, John Offerdahl, a forme
r linebacker for the Miami Dolphins, and pointed them out.

  “There were two guys who were suspicious standing next to Bernice’s garage wall,” the elder Offerdahl recalled.

  When the Offerdahls came out and asked the men what they were doing, the two men ran away.

  “We started chasing them,” said John Offerdahl, “and the dogs were chasing after them, too. It was kind of curious. We’re in a safe neighborhood, and people don’t usually run away when they’re asked what they’re doing.”

  A few minutes later, Melvin Medrano and his friend returned to Bernice’s house, hurling her ornamental cast-iron garden frog through her front window before running away.

  * * *

  At home at the time of the attempted attack, Bernice Novack was startled by the sound of breaking glass. She dashed into her front room to find her heavy frog ornament lying inside on the carpet, with broken glass everywhere. She immediately called her son in a panic, asking what to do. Ben Jr. told her not to worry; that the incident was not worth reporting to the police. He assured her that everything would be all right, and reminded her to make sure the security alarm was on inside the house.

  Nevertheless, the shaken eighty-six-year-old did call Fort Lauderdale Police, to report that her home had been vandalized.

  Half an hour later, Fort Lauderdale Police patrol officer Scott Fry arrived in a police cruiser. Bernice gave a statement that she had heard a loud noise at about 7:00 P.M., before finding her front window broken and the cast-iron frog on the carpet inside.

  Considering it a case of misdemeanor vandalism, the uniformed officer did not have the scene processed for evidence or take the frog into evidence.

  Bernice was so upset by the incident that she asked Rebecca Greene, who lived directly opposite, to keep an eye out when she came home at night. She also arranged to have television surveillance cameras installed outside the house for extra protection.

  “She was really, really nervous after that happened,” said Estelle Fernandez.