Yesterday,
jurors in White Plains, New York, heard from the mistress
of Ben Novack, the Miami Beach scion of Fontainebleau Hotel
builder Ben Novack Sr. Junior was brutally tortured and murdered in a
Rye Brook hotel room in July 2009, and Bliss's testimony added a new, tawdry layer to an already incredible criminal case. Novack's wife Narcy and her
brother are accused of hiring two hit men who killed her husband
and his 86-year-old mother, Bernice Novack. Prosecutors claim Narcy feared her husband was
going to divorce her, leaving her only with a $65,000 settlement under a
1991 prenuptial agreement.
During the second day of testimony in the
high-profile murder case, tattoo artist Rebecca A.. Starr Bliss explained how Narcy stalked her for months after learning about her
affair with Ben. The 40-year-old ex-escort claimed Narcy told her in a raging and rambling phone call seven
months before Ben was killed that "if I can't have him, no one
will."
Bliss was a down-and-out tattoo artist who had turned to starring in porn movies, stripping and turning tricks when she met Ben in late 2008, she testified. She described how he paid her $600 for their first sexual encounter and how he subsequently wooed her a $4,000 spa escape, a $1,400-a-month Fort Lauderdale condo, $10,000 in furniture, another $10,000 worth of DJ equipment, a cell phone and a toy poodle. She also said that Ben wanted to avoid a messy divorce and called herself his "girlfriend."
Her appearance on the stand was the first time the public got to see the woman who allegedly set Narcy off on her homicidal plan against Ben, whose kinky sexual proclivities have come to light during the last two years New York law enforcement officials have been investigating his wife.
A Grand Rapids native, Bliss has been a tattoo artist since the early 1990s, according to her web-site, Blissbodyart.com.
"I got my first tattoo when I was 16 and have had a passionate love for body art ever since," she wrote on her about page. According to her Facebook profile, Bliss is into dub-step and the Black Eyed Peas. She enjoys watching martial arts films and reading the works of Bristish philosopher Bertrand Russell, German genius Albert Einstein, and Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho. Her activities and interests include handguns, archery, motorcycles and demolition derbies.
On the witness stand, Bliss said Narcy constantly made harassing phone calls, tried to have her landlord cancel her lease, and falsely reported her and Ben to the FBI, alleging they were both involved in a sham marriage scam.
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