Steve Lieberman

slieberm@lohud.com

Writing in a letter that her life depended on it, Diana Nadell asked her brother to arrange the assassination of two witnesses against her in the brutal January slaying of her 80-year-old mother-in-law in Valley Cottage, an indictment released Friday claims.

The indictment says Nadell tried to pass the request to her brother through a woman named Antoinette Campbell, an Orange County jail inmate, giving her a letter July 12 that was to be delivered to Nadell's brother when Campbell reached Jamaica.

In a telephone conversation with her husband James on Aug. 11 Nadell then tried to to find out if her brother, Peter Grant, had received her message, the indictment says.

Prosecutors said James Nadell, a Florida neuropsychologist who supports his wife, was not aware his wife was trying to hire people to kill the witnesses, Karen Hamm-Samuel and Tanisha Joyner, or of her earlier plot to kill his mother, Peggy Nadell.

The indictment says that in the letter intended for her brother, Diana Nadell states: "My friend will tell you what I need. My life depends on it. I don't know how Pete but somehow you have to get it done."

Grant's 25-year-old daughter Eltia — Nadell's niece — pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of hindering prosecution and agreed to testify against Diana Nadell, as has Joyner. Hamm-Samuel is accused of helping Diana Nadell buy the phone she is accused of using to lure Peggy Nadell to her door; she has not been charged.

Nadell was already being held without bail in jail on a first-degree murder charge in the killing of Peggy Nadell during the early morning hours of Jan. 25. She promised Andrea Benson $10,000 to help her kill the older woman, authorities said.

She pleaded not guilty Friday to new charges of second-degree conspiracy, first-degree intimidating a witness, first-degree attempted tampering with a witness, and second-degree criminal solicitation.

Her lawyer, Luis Penichet of White Plains, told Supreme Court Justice William Kelly that Nadell was unable to afford his services on the new charges.

Kelly said Nadell would be assigned a court-appointed lawyer paid by the state, though not one from the Rockland County Public Defender's Office, which is already representing Joyner.

Prosecutor Richard Kennison Moran said he would seek to have the two sets of charges consolidated. Diana Nadell's next scheduled court appearance is Thursday.

Peggy Nadell's daughter, son-in-law and friends attended the hearing, wearing buttons with her picture.