As noted in an earlier blog, the murder for hire was botched and led to the arrest of the wife of the slain dentist.
Dr. Borukhova, an internist, was accused to hiring Mallayev for the hit after a judge awarded custody to her husband. Before sentencing, Mallayev insisted “I didn’t kill nobody in my life . . . I live by the Ten Commandments. You both [referring to the judge and prosecutor] laugh on that, . . . I feel comfortable with myself. I’m good in front of myself and in front of God.”
Dr. Borukhova, 35, an internist who was convicted of ordering Mr. Mallayev to kill her husband after a judge awarded him temporary custody of their daughter.
Justice Hanophy also referenced religious faith in his sentencing, saying “Mr. Mallayev, you took the 20,000 pieces of silver to murder Dr. Malakov,. You say you’re a religious man. There’s a man in the New Testament who says, ‘What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loseth his soul?’”
Hanophy then turned from the New Testament to Confucius in sentencing Borukhova to the maximum: “You set out on a journey for revenge because a judge had the temerity to give custody of your child to your husband. A person who sets out on a path of revenge should first dig two graves. . . . you are about to enter your eight-by-eight above-ground grave, where you will spend the rest of your natural life.”
The whole trial has been a type of course in religious views, including the court originally sentencing hearing on the Sabbath — which he eventually dropped after objections.
The trial has focused attention on the small community of Bukharian Jews in Queens, which was split over the case.
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