If you're being arraigned for allegedly threatening the brother of the man your sister is accused of killing, should you really be yelling at the judge? That's what Natella Natanova did yesterday and she was removed from court.
Natanova's sister Mazoltuv Borukhova (pictured, top) is accused of killing her ex-husband, Daniel Malakov (pictured, bottom). She and her husband were fighting over custody of their daughter (a court had awarded him temporary custody), and authorities say Borukhova paid a relative to gun down Malakov in front of their daughter at a Queens playground.
Malakov's brother, Gavriel Malakov, who may testify against his ex-sister-in-law, called the police when Natanova allegedly told him, "You do know if you talk, you will be the next to go," on Monday morning. Natanova denied stalking Malakov claimed he walked by her apartment, and when the judge set the bail at $150,000, she screamed, "But it's my house!"
Her lawyer says she didn't know Malakov was a potential witness and said prosecutors "are squeezing the family in order to solve a murder that they don't have proper evidence on ... [Malakov] is carrying out a vendetta." Malakov, though, told the Post, "I'm very afraid. It's difficult to talk about."
But Malakov went to a hearing for the gunman Mikhail Mallayev, whose fingerprints were found on a silencer left at the scene. Malleyev, an uncle-by-marriage of Borkhova's and Natanova's, was seeking a court-appointed lawyer. After seeing him, Malakov said, "When you look at him, you picture how the homicide actually took place.”
Update: WCBS 2 will have an exclusive interview with Mallayev during the 11 p.m. news.
