Aasha and Brij Chhabra were found shot to death in their Detroit-area home.
For the Chronicle



March 25, 2008, 10:24AM
2 accused in plot to kill couple being sent to Michigan
Magistrate judge transfers Houston-area men's case


By DANE SCHILLER
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle


The next chapter in the saga of two Houston-area men accused of conspiring to kill an Indian couple over a $1.5 million dispute will have to play out in Detroit, as a federal magistrate judge on Monday ordered them sent to Michigan to face justice.

New details emerged during a Houston hearing in which an FBI agent testified one of the men cooperated by letting feds record two cell-phone conversations he had with his co-defendant.

Wearing green jail uniforms and chained at the wrists, waists and ankles, landscaper Douglas Tobar, 40, and his former employer, Narayan Thadani, 60, sat at the same courtroom table but appeared to say nothing to each other.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Smith ordered the men held and instructed the Marshal Service to take them to Michigan, where a husband and wife were shot to death earlier this month. The men are charged with conspiracy to murder and use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire.

"Each poses a substantial flight risk and danger to the community," Smith said at the hearing's conclusion.


Trail to Texas
Federal authorities allege a movielike plot unraveled when a Michigan police officer pulled over a sedan that had been driven from the Houston area to Troy, a suburb just outside Detroit.

Inside the vehicle, police found a handgun and a pair of bloody latex gloves, as well as a blood-smeared envelope with the names and addresses of Brij Chhabra, 65, and his wife, Aasha Chhabra, 56.

The vehicle's driver and passenger — who both lived in the Houston area — were arrested after officers found the Chhabras shot dead in their home.

The trail led back to Texas and to Tobar, who landscaped for Thadani, police say.

The Chhabras were suing Thadani, who had been asked to invest about $2 million from the sale of a home that had been owned by Aasha Chhabra's late father. Thadani's assets were frozen by a judge.

Tobar, like the two men in the car with the bloody gloves, is a native of El Salvador. He is legally in the United States and owns a small landscaping company.

He met the men at Alcoholics Anonymous and introduced one of them to Thadani, who asked for help "getting rid" of the Chhabras, according to the FBI.

"He cooperated an awful lot; he was trying to do the right thing," Tobar's attorney, Guy Womack, said after the hearing.

"He exercised extremely poor judgment in introducing these two guys but had nothing to do with murder," Womack said. "I don't think he had any idea in his worst nightmare this would happen."


Lack of evidence claimed
During the hearing, Thadani's lawyer, Kent Schaffer, sought to show that the FBI and police had minimal evidence against his client and noted that the lawsuit would continue regardless of whether the Chhabras had been killed.

FBI agent Benjamin Stone said Tobar let authorities record two of his phone calls to Thadani.

In one, Thadani promised to pay Tobar's legal fees, he said. In the other, Thadani advised Tobar to stay calm around FBI agents.

Stone also said that during a Friday search of Thadani's properties, agents found a hand-drawn map of the Chhabra's home in Michigan as well as a tape recording of a phone conversation between Thadani and Aasha Chhabra.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Stabe said the men were charged with among the most brutal crimes to make their way into federal court.

"We have a man and woman in Michigan killed over a civil lawsuit," he said.

Thadani, a retired public servant, was born in India but has lived in the United States since 1968.

Tobar's wife, with whom he has a 7-week-old daughter, observed from a courtroom bench and silently blew her husband a kiss.

dane.schiller@chron.com

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 45292.html