Boyfriend of late Montrose vet testifies that cops hatched murder-for-hire scheme

Leon Jacob, 40, talks to his attorneys, George Parnham (left) and Matthew Pospisil during Jacob's solicitation of capital murder trial on March 22, 2018. Leon Jacob, 40, talks to his attorneys, George Parnham (left) and Matthew Pospisil during Jacob's solicitation of capital murder trial on March 22, 2018. Photo: By Brian Rogers Photo: By Brian Rogers Image 1 of / 39 Caption Close Boyfriend of late Montrose vet testifies that cops hatched murder-for-hire scheme 1 / 39 Back to Gallery

Failed Houston doctor Leon Jacob took the witness stand Thursday to try to defend himself against allegations that he masterminded a scheme last March to hire a hitman to kill his ex-girlfriend and the ex-husband of his new girlfriend, a prominent Montrose veterinarian.

His denials from the witness stand were the climax of almost a week’s worth of testimony in a trial that has gained international notoriety and entranced Houstonians with details of contract killers, with piles of cash and gold watches exchanged after phony photographs of the intended victims were shown.

On the stand, Jacob denied that he had hired anybody to kill and maintained that he never wanted to see anyone get hurt. In fact, he said, he thought he had hired a private investigator to get his ex-girlfriend to meet with him. When that didn’t seem to work, he said he paid more to buy tickets and pay his ex to leave town so domestic violence charges she filed against him would be dismissed. He needed the case to go away so he could try to get his medical license.

“I never asked anybody to kill anybody,” he said. “I never asked to have anybody hurt, killed, harmed or kidnapped. I never asked for anybody in any way to be physically hurt.”

His attorney, George Parnham, showed jurors slides of quotes from the audio tape to show that the idea to kill came from the undercover officer who then talked Jacob into it.

“Just put her in a (expletive) room and tell her if she doesn’t leave town, you’ll kill her (expletive) parents,” Leon Jacob can be heard saying on audiotape during discussions secretly recorded by the undercover Houston police officer and highlighted by the defense.

However, under cross-examination he found himself acknowledging that he was caught on audio tape saying he wanted to inject his ex-girlfriend with a fatal chemical concoction and on video tape giving $1,800 to a man who told Jacob he had just killed his girlfriend’s ex-husband.

“I can give you $2,500 a week for four weeks,” Jacob said during a negotiation at the Olive Garden on Kirby last March and played for a jury to hear in his trial on charges of solicitation of capital murder.

It was one of several setbacks for Jacob’s defense, including the exclusion of a key witness. The trial judge rejected the proposed testimony from a expert in acoustics, which his defense attorney had said would likely clear his client in a trial that has attracted media from across the country.

Prosecutors detailed the elaborate efforts that went into setting up a sting with an undercover Houston police officer to arrest the River Oaks couple, a sting that included staged fake murder photos.

On Thursday, Jacob agreed that he said those words and more after the pretend contract killer explained how the murders would go down. Leon also acknowledged that he was on audio tape saying he wanted to inject his girlfriend with potassium chloride, a chemical he knew would be fatal.

Leon tried to make the case that he thought the hitman was a just friend of a private investigator who he had paid to arrange a meeting with the ex-girlfriend, Meghan Verikas.

“We had multiple discussions about not wanting to harm or hurt anyone,” Jacob testified.

He tried to show that he wanted to hire someone to scare his ex-girlfriend into leaving town, not kill her. He said he thought some of the money was going to his ex-girlfriend so she would leave town instead of pursuing charges she filed against him for domestic violence and stalking.

Prosecutors countered that Jacob can also be heard saying he wanted his ex-girlfriend to leave town because charges she filed against him had to go away and if that meant she was killed, that would be fine.

During a rapid-fire cross-examination of Jacob, prosecutor Samantha Knecht got him to admit he was a womanizer who moved in with popular Montrose veterinarian Valerie Busick McDaniel just seven days after a break up with his girlfriend of three years who was the target of the alleged murder-for-hire.

The revelation prompted an emotional outburst from Jacob.

“If you’re asking me to get up here and say I’m some womanizer, that’s fine. You can characterize me as that,” he told the jury. “I’m not on trial for being a womanizer. I’m on trial for solicitation of capital murder, so you can assassinate my character all you want up here, but it doesn’t make me guilty of what you charged me with.”

READ MORE : Alleged murder-for-hire target tearfully testifies against ex-boyfriend Leon Jacob

Jacob testified that the entire plan began when he was contacted by a friend of a friend who said he could get Verikas to agree to a meeting about dropping domestic violence charges that she filed against Jacob after leaving him in March 2017.

That man, an Army veteran, told Jacob he was a private investigator. Jacob said he paid the man, Moataz Azzeh, more than $10,000 for expenses and to give to Verikas to leave town.

After nothing happened for several weeks, Jacob grew frustrated and Azzeh disappeared. Jacob testified that Azzeh told him that his bail bondsman, city councilman Michael Kubosh, always knew where he was.

Jacob approached Kubosh who was suspicious of what was going on and called the police. Invesitgators with HPD’s major offender squad eventually located Azzeh who agreed that he would introduce Jacob to an undercover officer posing as a hitman.

That officer taped all of his conversations with Jacob, which became the centerpiece of the case against him after he was arrested with McDaniel last March. She can be heard on tape agreeing to pay the supposed hitman to kill her ex-husband and make it look like a fatal carjacking. The 48-year-old veterinarian killed herself days after being arrested.

On Thursday, Jacob’s mother, Golda Jacob, testified that she represented McDaniel during her 2016 divorce and that McDaniel had asked her repeatedly to find someone to kill her husband.

“I didn’t take it seriously,” Golda Jacob testified.

Prosecutors noted that the statement, which would help her son if true, might mean Golda Jacob violated the professional rules of conduct by not alerting authorities.

During a late night meeting with the undercover officer at McDaniel’s condo, Leon Jacob told him that his mother was a divorce attorney and might have more work for him, if things went well. It was at that meeting, that Jacob and McDaniel gave the undercover officer $1,800 toward their first week’s installment on the $10,000 for the first murder after being told McDaniel’s ex-husband Marion “Mack” McDaniel had been killed.

Jacob’s testimony Thursday was a surprise because Parnham has said for months that he was going to call an expert on acoustics to show that the tapes did not show Jacob was culpable.

However, prosecutors objected to the testimony of Al Yonovitz, a PhD in acoustics, as an expert. During a hearing away from jurors, Yonovitz showed that he was going to testify about what Jacob meant when he said certain words.

State District Judge Jim Wallace ruled that Yonovitz could testify about the poor sound quality of the tapes or that he was able to enhance them for jurors to listen to, but he could not testify to what Jacob meant, since that is a decision for jurors to make.

Parnham elected not to call Yonovitz at all.

Also on Thursday, the jury saw a video recording of Jacob being arrested with McDaniel just moments after police lied to the couple about the death of her ex-husband.

Jurors were also shown grisly, bloody photos of a faked kidnapping and fatal carjacking that police put together to complete a sting that included an undercover officer posing as a hitman.

In a play to see how Jacob and McDaniel would react to the news, they went to McDaniel’s condo after midnight on a March day last year to deliver fake news that her ex-husband had been killed.

“We were here all night,” Jacob immediately told the police. Minutes later, Jacob and McDaniel were in handcuffs.

Jacob faces the possibility of life in prison if convicted. The trial, in state District Judge Jim Wallace’s court, began Monday and is expected to last at least a week.