Man suspected in shooting of dentist Daniel Malakov claims innocence

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B"H

This is getting more and more tangled. I just hope the little girl is OK.

M
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**UPDATE

BY TAMER EL-GHOBASHY in Decatur, Ga.
and XANA O'NEILL, NICOLE BODE and TINA MOORE in New York
DAILY NEWS WRITERS
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2007/11/22/2007-11-22_man_suspected_in_shooting_of_dentist_dan


The man charged with killing a Queens dentist in front of his 4-year-old daughter claimed in an interview from a Georgia jail Wednesday that cops have "the wrong man."

"This is ridiculous," Mikhail Mallayev, 50, told the Daily News, four days after cops plucked him from his suburban Atlanta home and charged him in Daniel Malakov's murder. "I'm innocent. I didn't do this ugly thing."

Mallayev's comments came after cops executed search warrants and confiscated computers from the dentist's estranged wife, Dr. Mazoltuv Borukhova, and other family members, a police source said. Mallayev is believed to be a family member of Borukhova.

The source said cops searched the physician's Forest Hills home and office on Monday night, as well as the apartments of her mother and her two sisters.

None of them has been charged with a crime.

Stephen Scaring, Borukhova's criminal lawyer, refused to confirm that search warrants had been executed but said the physician had nothing to do with her husband's death.

"My client has from the beginning denied any involvement in this serious crime," he said.

Malakov's family has accused Borukhova and her family of involvement in his killing on a sunny Sunday morning as his daughter, Michelle, stood nearby.

Shortly before the murder, Borukhova had lost a nasty custody battle with her husband over Michelle, which pitted the two families against each other.

Cops say fingerprints found on a homemade silencer recovered at the Forest Hills playground matched Mallayev's fingerprints, which were on file from a subway fare-beating bust in 1994.

Cell-phone records show Mallayev drove to New York City from Georgia on the day of the shooting and then returned to his home, a police source said.

Mallayev, who wore an orange jumpsuit in DeKalb County Jail, said he was in the city that day for a wedding.

"I was there," he said in heavily accented English. "But I don't know anything."

The Borukhovas and the Malakovs are part of a tight Jewish immigrant community from Uzbekistan that settled in Queens but stretches to the Atlanta area.

"I'm shocked because I know both families," said Mira Yagudayev, who lives across the street from Mallayev in Chamblee, Ga.

The relationship between Mallayev, who faces murder charges and is fighting extradition, and Borukhova was not entirely clear.

A police source said Mallayev was Borukhova's uncle. Yagudayev said Mallayev's wife was a cousin of Borukhova's father.

Neighbor Billy Hood, 70, said cops searched an SUV and a Corvette in Mallayev's driveway.

"When they bought the house, it was a small three-bedroom split level," he said. "They started to build around it."

Today, the home is fronted by a large portico and a two-story colonnade.

Mallayev partnered with Anatoliy Iskhakov to create a development of 130 townhouses called Sugar Hill in Georgia that never materialized, Iskhakov said.

He and Mallayev became partners in King David LLC and obtained $250,000 for starting costs, he said. But without telling him, he said, Mallayev withdrew $130,000.

"He built a 10,000-square-foot home," Iskhakov said. "but nobody in his family works."

Iskhakov said Mallayev repaid about $100,000 to a private investor backing the project.