RIVERHEAD, N.Y. – A woman whose boyfriend is accused of trying to have her killed is testifying on his behalf and says she visits him despite a judge's order barring him from seeing her.
"Because I love him," Sherry Nohar said of her reasons for defending Kabeer Din, a former Baltimore police officer and New York Police Department recruit who was arrested last summer. Prosecutors say he met with an undercover police officer he thought was a hit man to discuss killing Nohar for $3,000.
Nohar testified Wednesday that she has attended Din's trial on Long Island "to make sure he knows that I'm here for him and, of course, that I love him."
Din, 22, is charged with conspiracy to murder and could be sentenced to as many as 25 years in prison if convicted. He wanted his girlfriend killed because she didn't want to marry him and he feared she would "report something that would be damaging to him" to the NYPD, prosecutor Jeremy Scileppi said.
Din was ordered to stay away from Nohar after he was arrested, but Nohar testified that she continues to visit and speak with him while he is free on bail.
"We're still boyfriend and girlfriend," said Nohar, 24.
When asked about the order, Nohar said, "It says he can't see me. It didn't say I couldn't see him."
Din was secretly recorded discussing Nohar's killing with undercover officers, first with the NYPD and then with Suffolk County police, prosecutors said.
Din was arrested July 31, 2006, after giving an undercover Suffolk officer a photograph of the woman and $200 in cash and his credit card as a down payment on the hit, prosecutors said.
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