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New York City, NY - Makeshift Silencer Is Main Clue in Killing of Queens Dentist.
The gunman who killed a man in front of his estranged wife and their 4-year-old daughter used a crude silencer made of a plastic bleach bottle wrapped in duct tape as he opened fire in a Queens playground, the authorities said yesterday.
But the force of the gunman’s shots on Sunday blew the homemade silencer off the gun’s barrel and onto a pile of leaves, where it was recovered by detectives and has now become a prime piece of evidence in trying to determine who killed the father, Dr. Daniel Malakov, on a sunny morning, and why.
The police are investigating whether the three bullets that entered Dr. Malakov’s chest capped vicious divorce and custody disputes between him and his estranged wife, Dr. Mazoltuv Borukhova legal battles that were acrimonious, accusatory and complicated, even in the often bitter world of New York State matrimonial law.
Detectives held Dr. Borukhova, who is also known as Marina Borukhova, for several hours on Sunday at the 112th Precinct station house in Forest Hills, Queens, before releasing her.
“No suspect has been identified,” said Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman.
Dr. Borukhova was not present yesterday as the grieving relatives of Dr. Malakov, many weeping openly, held a funeral for him in Queens.
On Oct. 3, a judge granted Dr. Malakov, an orthodontist, temporary custody of the girl, Michelle. The decision was enacted on Oct. 22, when Dr. Borukhova, a specialist in internal medicine at North Shore University Hospital, turned the girl over, even as she fought the order in the courts.
The shooting occurred when Dr. Malakov arrived in his car at Annadale Playground to drop off Michelle around 11 a.m. He parked and got out of his car as Michelle saw her mother and ran toward her, a law enforcement official said. At that time, a lone gunman approached Dr. Malakov and shot three times.
Then the gunman, whom witnesses described as a white man in his 50s, ran west on 64th Road. He was wearing a dark leather jacket and a black woolen polo cap with a brim, the police said. As officers arrived, Dr. Borukhova was trying to administer aid.
Over the years, law enforcement authorities have encountered various types of homemade silencers, often using plastic soda bottles, towels or pillows as mufflers. In this case, it was a plastic bleach container covered entirely in gray duct tape.
The police recovered no shell casings, indicating that the gunman either collected them or used a revolver. A fragment of one bullet was found, but the police had yet to identify the make of the weapon.
A lawyer representing Dr. Borukhova said the authorities would find that she “has nothing to do with the death of her husband.”
“I am sure the police will establish there is no connection between the matrimonial action and this death, and I hope they focus on the homicide and not look for a connection that does not exist,” said the lawyer, Stephen Scaring.
Dr. Malakov’s relatives gathered by the dozens to remember him yesterday at a chapel on Queens Boulevard. A service was said in Russian. People wept and spoke of him as a peaceful father from Uzbekistan who loved his daughter. “He was perfect; he was a high-class doctor,” Khaim Malakov, 67, the victim’s father, said in broken English.
Family members found fault with Dr. Borukhova’s family, and recounted recent confrontations that they insisted foretold of the tragedy to come. The elder Mr. Malakov said he had a conversation with Dr. Borukhova’s sister in which she blamed his family for the loss of custody, and he said she had vowed revenge.
The couple wed on Nov. 30, 2001, but separated “shortly after the birth” of Michelle on Feb. 16, 2003, when Dr. Borukhova took the girl and left their home, said Florence M. Fass, who has represented Dr. Borukhova in her divorce and custody cases since July.
Ms. Fass and Nathan Pinkhasov, a lawyer for Dr. Malakov, said that Dr. Malakov filed for divorce in May 2005.
“It was unpleasant,” Ms. Fass said of the legal fight. “I would put it right up there with the very difficult.”
Mr. Pinkhasov agreed, saying, “The result is the most surprising out of all, but in my experience, it has been the most contentious matter, in terms of a divorce.”
On Oct. 3, Justice Sidney F. Strauss, of State Supreme Court, in Queens, issued an order transferring temporary custody of Michelle to Dr. Malakov. Ms. Fass said she found the decision “highly unusual” because it was done without a hearing. Dr. Borukhova had had de facto custody of Michelle before that decision. Calls to the judge’s chambers yesterday were not returned.
Ms. Fass said the judge stated that he was transferring custody because Dr. Borukhova “was allegedly not cooperating with supervised visitation.” She said that Michelle would cling to Dr. Borukhova, rather than go with her father, and that the mother did not want Michelle physically torn from her.
Mr. Pinkhasov said the judge had reviewed three years’ worth of legal papers and determined that Dr. Borukhova, whatever her reasoning, was not complying with visitation orders.
Ms. Fass denied that charge, but Mr. Pinkhasov said: “She had no right not to comply with the orders of the court. And that is what the judge decided, that it was hurting the child to be with her and not to be with him.”
Ms. Fass went to the Appellate Division to stop the transfer of the child, but was denied on Oct. 18. The transfer was made, without a hearing, four days later, despite Ms. Fass’s last-minute appeal to Justice Strauss for the court to speak with the court-appointed psychologist.
Dr. Borukhova declined to comment yesterday, as she was trying “regain custody of Michelle” from the city’s Administration for Children’s Services, Ms. Fass said.
Mr. Pinkhasov said that Dr. Borukhova had filed a separate case charging Dr. Malakov with “sexual impropriety” against the child, but said “there was no evidence to substantiate any of the allegations.”
Ms. Fass disputed that, saying that to her knowledge, there was never a hearing on the allegations of sexual abuse, and that “witnesses stated they had been threatened by unknown persons if they testified against the father.”
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