http://www.boston.com/dailynews/236/nation/Police_Woman_hires_hit_man_aft:.shtml

Police: Woman hires hit man after years of injecting husband with dirty needles didn't kill him

By Donna De La Cruz, Associated Press, 8/24/2001 20:06

NEW YORK (AP) A woman injected her wealthy husband with dirty needles for a year to try to kill him, then placed a $15 downpayment to hire a hit man when her attempts failed, police said Friday.

Budhwantie Ferri, 41, was arrested Thursday night after she handed the money to a police informant, assistant chief James Ward said. She was charged with second-degree conspiracy and criminal solicitation after allegedly offering to pay $20,000 for the murder.

Her husband, Antonio Ferri, 64, was undergoing medical tests. Police described him as a wealthy businessman and real estate owner.

Lt. John Kopp said Antonio Ferri wanted to have the four-year marriage annulled, which could have resulted in his wife's deportation to her native Guyana or Venezuela, where she is a citizen.

Her attorney, John Burke, did not return a telephone call Friday.

Budhwantie Ferri, a nursing student who works at the Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center nursing home, allegedly began taking dirty needles home and telling her husband she wanted to practice on him.

Ward said she injected her husband four times and he became sick with jaundice, hepatitis and rashes.

''She would inject his arm, pull the blood back and push it back in, hoping to wash something out of these discarded needles,'' Kopp said.

The fifth time Budhwantie Ferri tried to inject her husband, he refused and she began looking for someone to kill him, Kopp said.

She allegedly met the police informant through a mutual friend and asked him to help her have her husband injected with HIV-positive blood.

But if that didn't work, the killer could ''run Antonio Ferri overwith an automobile,'' his wife said, according to the complaint.

-- Anonymous, August 24, 2001