REDWOOD CITY -- A broke real estate investor charged with murdering his wife in their Woodside mansion to collect her $31 million in life insurance told his daughter he indeed fired the fatal shot -- but as an act of mercy, a police detective testified Wednesday.
Pooroushasb "Peter" Parineh explained to 33-year-old Austiaj that her mother, Parima Parineh, fired a handgun twice during a suicide attempt on April 13, 2010, hitting herself in the cheek. He said he came upon the scene in their bedroom after hearing the shots and carried out his wife's request to fire the fatal bullet into her head, Detective Hector Acosta of the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office testified during a preliminary hearing on the evidence in the case.
But San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Jonathan Karesh ruled that Parineh's account may be a fabrication. Karesh said prosecutor Al Giannini put forth enough evidence to try Parineh, 66, on charges of killing his wife for financial gain and using a handgun. The case will now head to trial.
The defendant, who remained shackled and in orange jail clothes while in court, didn't react to the ruling.
Parineh's longtime mistress, who was not named, was slated to testify but ended up giving a statement to police, Giannini said. The defense didn't call any witnesses during the hearing.
Acosta testified there is no doubt -- based on the position of the victim, four bullet shell casings and blood splatters at the scene -- that Parima Parineh was murdered. He also pointed to fishy stories her husband told police as they investigated the crime. After calling police to his house around 5:20 p.m. the night of his wife's death, Parineh told officers he had come home to find her lifeless body. He admitted to having financial problems but lied about the size of the insurance policy, initially saying it was $20 million, Acosta said.
Parineh also had trouble explaining where his wife had gotten the gun, the detective testified. Less than a month before the killing, sheriff's deputies had apparently seized all the weapons in the house. They had been called to the home on reports of a suicide attempt, and Parima Parineh, 56, endured an involuntary 72-hour stay at a psychiatric ward. After his wife's death, Parineh told investigators the .380 pistol was not among the guns officers had taken.
The motive, as Giannini sees it, involves at least $14 million in debt that piled up after a red-hot California real estate market froze in 2008. Parineh owned property all over the Bay Area and farther afield in California.
But his finances had gotten so bad by 2010 that his house at 50 Fox Hill Road was in foreclosure, and he was years behind on San Mateo County property taxes.
As a result of one of his failed deals, Peter Parineh had lost a lawsuit, and the plaintiffs laid claim to the $2 million in cash collateral that backed up his wife's $31 million in insurance policies, according to Giannini. As a result, Acosta said, the insurance company was poised to cancel Parima Parineh's policies in April 2010, around the time of her death.
Although Peter Parineh was not a named beneficiary of his wife's insurance, that would not have stopped him from getting the cash, Giannini said after the hearing. The insurance money was paid to a trust set up for the couple's children: Austiaj, 31-year-old Hormoz and 29-year-old Khashayar.
But the trust allowed Peter Parineh to make transactions with the money, and there was evidence he had used it in the past, Giannini said.
"They're finding deals they didn't even know about," he said of the children, who have received the insurance money.
Parineh is being held without bail at San Mateo County jail and due back in court Nov. 2. His attorney, Dek Ketchum, did not a return a call Wednesday afternoon seeking comment.
Contact Joshua Melvin at 650-348-4335.
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