By Ivan Pereira
During a hearing on March 26, Mikhail Mallayev's court-appointed attorney, Michael Siff, made a motion to Supreme Court Justice Robert Hanophy to unseal police search warrants for his client's house in suburban Atlanta.Siff said he needed the evidence to help build his case for Mallayev, who is awaiting trial on first-degree murder and conspiracy charges in the Oct. 28 slaying.”In order for me to do my motions, I have to see a search warrant,” Siff said outside the court.Police also had search warrants issued for the home and medical offices of Malakov's estranged wife, Dr. Mazoltuv Borukhova, who will be tried concurrently with Mallayev on first-degree murder and conspiracy charges in the murder. The attorney said he was told by the Queens district attorney's office that all the warrants would be sealed for the time being due to the witness tampering charges filed against Malakov's former sister-in-law Natella Natanova. Brad Leventhal, the assistant district attorney prosecuting Malakov's case, would not comment about the details of the search warrants.Malakov, 34, a Bukarian Jewish immigrant from Uzbekistan, was shot twice in the chest as he was dropping off his then 4-year-old daughter at the Annadale Playground on Yellowstone Boulevard and 64th Road. The girl was going to visit Borukhova, who had lost custody of Michelle a few days before the shooting.Three weeks later, Georgia police arrested Mallayev, Borukhova's uncle by marriage, after the NYPD matched fingerprints from a makeshift silencer abandoned at the park by the shooter to Mallayev's prints that were on file for an earlier arrest.He was indicted in December by a Queens grand jury and extradited back to the borough a month later.In February, police arrested Borukhova and charged her with murder charges after police discovered she made 91 phone calls to Mallayev in the weeks leading up to the murder but only two following it.Prosecutors claim she hired her distant uncle to regain custody of Michelle, who was under the care of the city's Administration for Children's Services but may soon be placed in the care of Malakov's brother, according to a Queens Family Court judge.As Mallayev stood silently before the judge in the courtroom, more than a dozen of Malakov's relatives cursed him in Russian. Malakov's niece, who asked not to be identified, said she was greatly angered that her alleged uncle's killer was holding a siddur, a Jewish prayer book, in his hands during the hearing.”He killed a person and now he's pretending to be religious,” she said outside the courtroom.Both Mallayev and Borukhova pleaded not guilty to the charges and were remanded to Riker's Island. If convicted, they both face up to life in prison without parole.Reach reporter Ivan Pereira by e-mail at ipereira@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 146.
