Holocaust Survivor Heiress Tried to Arrange Hit on Her Israeli Son-in-Law
Helen Rich, a Jewish Holocaust survivor and successful Queens real estate businesswoman, was 55 when the case unfolded. She lived in Forest Hills, Queens, owned property worth more than $4 million at the time, and had a daughter, Marsha, who married Israeli doctor Avner Regev in 1971. Regev, then 30, worked at a Bronx hospital.
By 1973 the marriage had collapsed, and the couple became locked in a bitter custody fight over their 4-year-old daughter, Daphne. Rich came to believe Regev would abduct the child, and feared most that he would take her to Israel. She also claimed, as reported in Israel, that Regev had been violent toward her and her daughter.
Rich hired Patrick Simon, a 47-year-old former New York police officer who was initially brought in as a bodyguard for the granddaughter, and offered him $25,000 to kill Regev. Simon then enlisted a subcontracted hitman, Kenneth O'Donnell. Rich also allegedly helped identify Regev, once hiding behind a tree at the Queens Botanical Garden to watch him and point him out to the assassin.
The murder plot nearly succeeded. O'Donnell headed toward Regev's Bronx home armed with a silenced pistol and wearing a ski mask, but lost his nerve and went to police. Bronx prosecutors and police then staged a fake killing with Regev's cooperation. On May 20, detectives ambushed the hitman outside Regev's home, pretended to beat him, and moved Regev to a police boat near the Whitestone Bridge, where officers posed him as a corpse and photographed him for the hitman to use as proof.
O'Donnell showed Simon Regev's wallet and the fake death photo, after which Rich paid Simon the $25,000, and Simon passed $14,000 to the hitman. Police arrested Simon immediately, and Rich barricaded herself in her Forest Hills home for two hours before surrendering. Simon was sentenced to 15 years in prison; Rich was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and given a five-year sentence, though she was released on $100,000 bail while appealing.
