Attention visitors from Google, after reading the post below, click here for the latest news about Santhosh Paul.
I thought I would take a break from the What About Bob? series to blog about the latest criminal drama on Long Island. For those of you who are not from Long Island, we’re the people who brought you Amy Fisher and Joey Buttafuoco. Besides, I have to drag out the suspense that is building up for Part 6. Ha ha!
Shortly before this past Christmas, an Indian-American man named Santhosh Paul, age 31, was arrested for trying to hire a man to kill his wife Tina. Little did the Bellmore resident know that the man to whom he offered $200,000 was an undercover cop posing as a hit man. Mr. Paul came to the attention of the police after he initially approached a friend about killing Tina, but the friend declined and secretly reported him to the police.
According to the Nassau County District Attorney’s office, Mr. Paul took his three year old son with him to meet the would be hit man at a McDonald’s in Uniondale. Mr. Paul told the undercover detective that he wanted his wife dead “before the holidays”. According to Foxnews.com [“Cops: N.Y. Man Seeking Wife‘s Life Insurance Hired Hit Man for Pre-Christmas Slaying”, Dec. 21], Mr. Paul “gave the detective a photo of his wife, a business card with her address, her license plate numbers and her schedule and told him to stab her through the heart.”
Members of the Indian community from Kerala, according to Newsday [“Arrest for alleged plot to kill wife stuns many”, Dec. 22], were shocked, shocked that Mr. Paul could do such a thing. You see, Mr. Paul was very active in his Pentecostal Church!!! He served as treasurer of the Pentecostal Youth Fellowship of America and later became its president. How could such a good Christian man do such a terrible thing as to try and arrange for the murder of his wife?
Well, according to an article in the New York Post [“Pal: Devil Has Hold on ‘Hit’ Hubby”, Dec. 23], Mr. Paul’s friend Bejoy Samuel has fingered old Satan himself as the culprit. Mr. Paul, explains Samuel, “is a leader in the church. There’s always a demonic force against people in positions like that.” Gee, I wonder why the Catholic Church didn’t use that line of defense in the pedophile priest scandals. “You see your honor, I am not in the least bit attracted to adolescent boys, but one day I was alone with Timmy the altar boy and the devil possessed me and forced me to take Timmy into the confession booth so that I could comfort him with my rod and my staff.”
But the case gets even more interesting. The intended victim in Mr. Paul’s plot, Tina Paul, refuses to believe the charges against her husband! Newsday reported on Friday [“Wife stands by husband charged in murder plot”, Jan. 12] that Tina “and several relatives came to Nassau Supreme Court to support her husband” and that she “insists she believes her husband is innocent and should be allowed to return to their Bellmore home while awaiting trial.” A December 26 article in the New York Post [“Jailhouse Shock”] reports that despite being told by prosecutors that they have hours of videotape of her husband, she insisted that she felt “they were setting him up. I know him - he would never, ever do something like that.” In spite of this, the same Post article reports that when she went to visit her husband at the Nassau County Jail, he “flew into a rage and started screaming at her across the partition.”
It is very sad that Tina Paul refuses to believe that her husband tried to hire a man to kill her. The misanthrope in me says that if the Pauls did not have a child, that Tina Paul should be allowed have her husband back, and if he still goes ahead and kills her then he can be arrested for the crime and there will be two fewer nitwits in our society instead of one. Perhaps, coming from an immigrant community, there is some cultural issue at play here (and if anyone who visits here can provide any insight into this, please do) with respect to marriage in the Kerala Indian community. Possibly, Tina Paul feels that in some way it is her fault that her husband wants to kill her and that unless she publicly supports him and proclaims his innocence she will have brought shame upon herself and her community. Alternatively, in Tina Paul’s cultural background, there might be a lack of trust in the police and governmental authorities because of corruption and venality in the government back in Kerala.
Going back to the Amy Fisher case, Joey Buttafuoco’s wife Mary Jo for a long time afterwards continued to insist that her husband had not slept with Amy and that he was in no way involved with Amy’s plot to murder her. Eventually she wised up and divorced Joey. Hopefully Tina Paul will wise up soon, disavow Santhosh Paul and find a good husband who will love her and help her raise her child. Just as long as that man is not Bejoy Samuel.
11 comments:
tommy - you tease! Not nice making us wait for part 6!
This story is a perfect example of how religion takes away a person's responsibility for his or her actions. As in many mythologies, it's either gawd pulling the strings for good, or satan pulling the strings for bad.
That woman seems to have been trained to live in denial and to disregard evidence so much that she won't even see the truth about her husband despite all the proof that has been presented. They should take that child away from the mother as she doesn't seem sane enough to provide safety for the child. By ignoring the evidence, and wanting the husband to come home, she is endangering the child along with herself.
Yeah, her denial does seem bizarre. Again, I think there is some kind of cultural thing going on here. In New York City there are many immigrant communities, and immigrant wives are often reluctant to report when they are abused by their husbands. Part of it is that they are afraid it will bring shame on their family and community.
In the case of Tina Paul though, her stated refusal to believe the charges against her husband are not likely to have an impact on whether or not her husband is convicted. All that matters is the evidence gathered against him by the police. If they have him on audio tape telling the undercover detective to stab Tina through the heart, then it seems like an open and shut case to me.
I actually think that she is hiding something like an affair or some guy on the side that he found out about. why else would he want to stab her in the heart.she figures if she is totally supportive of him then nobody will ever suspect that. And of course he won't say anything because then that would show that he did want to do it. not that the video in the case wont already prove it. at this point they are just watching each others own reputation. Being a indian person myself i strongly believe in this case,she is not being supportive because of any cultural obligations to her marriage.
Thanks for your comments Anonymous. Infidelity on the part of Tina honestly had not occurred to me. That could be another possibility.
I firmly believe that Tina Paul should be thrown in jail for supporting him..but as much as thats a outrageous statement, I seriously think that she needs a reality check. As part of the immigrant community, I feel like it has nothing to do with her backing up her cultural beliefs, i think she really thinks hes innocent.
I cannot just if Tina Paul did the right thing or wrong. But being an Indian-American, I can tell you for sure that most wives would rather suffer than bring shame to their families. This does not just affect her but her son when he grows up and finds a pattern for himself. People think this shame will continue on in generations to come. And most Indians are pretty good in remembering a bad occurance in a family than good.
Secondly, on a biblical perspective. If you read the story of David the king, in 2nd Samuel. His son Absalom kicked his father, David out of the kingdom, sent soldiers behind David to kill him. During the war, David asks his soldies to make sure nothing happens to Absalom and to bring him alive. Later when he finds out that Absalom is killed, he weaps for his son bitterly.
As Christian, we are all sinners and have many faults in our lives. But Christ, choose to forgive our sins. I also don't say that the cops should let Santhosh Paul go. But he must pay the penalty for this decision.
to the last anonymous comment, get real. stop comparing situations now to things that someone wrote in the bible
hi,
its better that everyone waits for the truth to be revealed before passing judgment calls. let the words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart be pleasing to our Lord, our rock. Our thoughts and feelings determine who we are and what we become. Be careful on how each and everyone of us exercise it. Just leave Santhosh and Tins alone. Let them decide their own lives. Lets all just focus on ourt own individual lives and make it pleasing to God. Because there is going to be a day when we all have to be accountable for all the time God gifted us.
To the last Anonymous, if there is some God who will judge me in the afterlife, I won't have to worry about being judged for trying to have my wife murdered.
I went to school with TINI- lovingly called by her pals--
she was normal teen/college student.. but Santosh had a hold on her, he was rich and a big SHOW-OF,arrogant, Jack-A-- I never liked him, never saw what she saw in him.. She was sweet, lovely and smart girl..
CHurch does have to do withthis servile actions... I believe and certainly cultural and community-- it's all about what ppl think of you in thier community... also I know that if TINI is denying the EVIDENCE--- she should NOT BE ALLOED to raise a child.. She obvioulsy not SANE...
I'll do you one better, I grew up with Santosh in Uniondale NY and though he might come from a religious family I sincerely doubt his beliefs. He was definiitely a strange kid growing up and became an even stranger adult. I have to say I have never known a more shallow, greedier show off than Santosh. He is the type of person that you would run into on the street and instead of talking about things like how's your family doing he would go right into how much money he's making, how much his car costs, his watch, etc. Most people would wait until they were asked how much their car costs, he would come right out say it as if he feels he's better than you. This is why he didn't have too many friends in the neighborhood. As for his wife she must be a bigger idiot than he is because anybody that knows him would say that he would definitely do something like this for the money. It's not satan or evil, just pure greed. Take it from someone that has known him for most of his life, he is a total jerk and should be punished for what he has done.
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