QUEENS — The mother of a man accused of trying to murder two police officers has been indicted for tampering with jurors during his trial last year, the Queens District Attorney’s office said Wednesday.
Hina Rizvi, 46, and her son, Muhammad Ali, 23, of Jamaica, Queens, were charged with four counts of tampering with a juror, two counts of criminal contempt and one count of conspiracy, the DA’s office said.
Ali stood trial last year in Queens Supreme Court for the attempted murder of two Nassau County police officers who had come to arrest him for allegedly robbing a home in Hicksville, Long Island, on Jan. 3, 2014.
When four officers came to his home in Jamaica two days after the robbery, Ali allegedly tried to run down two of them with his car.
When Ali was on trial, he and his mother allegedly plotted to have her speak to jurors, hoping to get the trial to end in an acquittal, prosecutors said.
According to the Queens DA's office, Ali, who was being held without bail on Rikers Island, spoke to Rizvi on Oct. 5, 2015, and allegedly asked his mother "whether she had gotten hold of anybody."
She answered that she had talked to a juror in McDonald’s who “understood everything,” the DA’s office said.
Ali then told her that she should have “played the sympathy card,” according to prosecutors.
In another phone call he also told her that two jurors were against him. But Rizvi allegedly responded that he should not “jump to conclusions” and that “whatever she had to do, she did.”
As a result, on Oct. 6, 2015, the case ended in a mistrial, prosecutors said.
“Jurors must be protected from outside interference that might affect their deliberations,” District Attorney Richard Brown said in a statement.
Rizvi's attorney, Mahmoud Rabah, said Thursday that his client "adamantly denies the allegations."
"Our intention is to fight this case to exonerate her and clear her name," he said, calling Rizvi a “grieving woman ... who has tried to stand by her son."
The phone calls, he said, "are being misinterpreted."
"This is a mother trying to comfort her son," he said.
Rizvi, who pleaded not guilty at her arraignment Wednesday, was ordered held on $5,000 bail and is due back in court on May 18, according to the DA's office.
Her son will be arraigned on the charges at a later date, prosecutors said.
If convicted, they each face up to one year in jail.
