Killer in 1973 Spring Valley murder to be deported

Steve Lieberman 12:39 p.m. EST March 4, 2014

Samir Zada spent 40 years in prison for the murder of Jerry Stout


(Photo: gioadventures Getty Images/iStockphoto)

STORY HIGHLIGHTS


  • Samir Zada spent 40 years behind bars for a 1973 South Nyack killing.
  • He's been released from prison, but he's facing deportation to Jordan.
  • He's been handed over to U.S. immigration officials.



Convicted killer Samir Zada has been released from prison for deportation after 40 years behind bars for the brutal killing of a dance teacher in Spring Valley.

Zada, 58, was paroled on Feb. 24 into the custody of U.S. immigration officials “for deportation only,” according to the New York state Department of Corrections. His Elysian Avenue family — notorious in the South Nyack area for murder, drugs and violence during the 1970s — hails from Jordan.


Zada had been denied early release from a sentence of 25 years to life since becoming eligible in July 1999.


State parole officials last denied Zada early release in March 2013, but the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took custody of him under a program to deport criminals. A total of 14,217 criminal aliens have been taken by ICE between 2003 and 2013 for either immediate deportation or transfer to ICE custody.


An ICE spokesman didn’t return a telephone message Tuesday for comment.


Zada had been convicted after trial of murdering Jerry Stout, a dance instructor, on July 27, 1973, at Stout’s Regency Village apartment in a robbery. The proceeds included a $20 glass ring that Zada wanted, authorities said. Zada, then 17, and several cohorts had targeted Stout.


“The Zada brothers and family were all somewhat infamous,” said Robert Van Cura, a former South Nyack police chief and now a Rockland undersheriff. “He’s a very dangerous guy. This certainly won’t make the community safer. If he’s deported that negates some of that concern here.”


Aside from Samir Zada’s murder conviction, his youngest brother, Amer, was convicted of sodomizing and murdering Shirley Smith of Nyack on June 15, 1979, found by Nyack police standing above her with his pants down. She had been stabbed 26 times.


Amer Zada was convicted in 1980 of second-degree murder, aggravated sexual abuse and first-degree sodomy. He has been denied parole since 2005 as a danger to society.


Van Cura said Samir Zada remains a prime suspect in the 1971 murder of Florence Kalbach, then 84, of South Nyack. Van Cura said another man who admitted burglarizing the rooming house had been acquitted at trial and the defense pointed the finger at Samir.


Van Cura said detectives had hoped DNA found on cigarettes would provide more conclusive evidence nearly 40 years after the Kalbach’s murder.


“We were not able to make much headway,” Van Cura said. “The guy that needed to be talked was Samir. He was not talking.”


The family patriarch, Baker Zada twice served jail time for felony assault and shooting a police officer, Harry Nolan.


The third brother, Nazir Zada, spent years behind bars for pimping and weapons possession. He died of a drug overdose while on parole after he swallowed a balloon filled with heroin, intending to smuggle it to his brother in prison, Van Cura recalled.


Former Rockland District Attorney Kenneth Gribetz prosecuted the Zada brothers and called them “the family that preys together” in his 1989 book, “Murder Along the Way: A Prosecutor’s Personal Account of Fighting Violent Crime in the Suburbs.”


Gribetz said Tuesday that Samir Zada had threatened to kill him for years, along with the trial judges and others involved in the Stout murder case.


Gribetz said Zada recently sent him two letters wanting to meet with him to discuss his case and pending parole and deportation. Gribetz said Zada didn’t want to be deported to Jordan.


Gribetz said he sent the letters to the Rockland District Attorney’s Office, which has been opposing Zada’s release decades.


“I wanted him to remain in prison,” Gribetz said. “He was the last person I wanted to meet with. I hope he doesn’t get back into this country and is put behind bars in Jordan. He’s threatened my life and the life of others.

The others have died. I am the last guy standing.”


http://www.lohud.com/story/news/2014/03/04/killer-south-nyack-murder-deported/6012131/