Poisoned lottery winner Urooj Khan’s ex-wife reveals new shock.
Bureau Report
NEW YORK: A new twist has come up in the suspicious death of Urooj Khan, an Indian American entrepreneur from Illinois who was poisoned to death a day after he collected a one million dollar lottery winning check, with his ex-wife coming forward to claim that she never knew that her daughter was living in the United States, after she divorced from Khan.
“I was thinking, ‘Oh, my God. My daughter,” Maria Jones recalled of the moment she saw footage of her daughter, Jasmeen, 17, standing next to Urooj Khan as he collected his lottery winnings, reported NBC Chicago.
Jones and Khan were married for three years, she said. But during their bitter divorce, Jones said she didn’t have the resources to fight for custody. Khan took the girl to India and told his ex-wife he planned to stay there.
“She was just like any other little girl; a joy. She loved me to death,” said Jones, who now lives in Indiana. That move was 13 years ago. Jones tearfully recalled the final phone conversation she had with her daughter a few years after the move, reported NBC.
“She didn’t know how far she was. She said, ‘Oh, mommy. Come and get me. I don’t want to be here,” she said.
In the years that passed, Jones said she held tightly to the few memories she had of the girl but had no idea Khan the Jasmeen had moved to Illinois.
Khan died shortly after winning the lottery, last year, in July. Initially it was ruled as a death by natural causes, but since then, after his body was exhumed following complaints of foul play by his relatives, the Cook County Medical Examiner said he was poisoned with cyanide.
Jones said her greatest regret is that she can’t be with her daughter as she faces this family tragedy.
“There is no telling what she is going through and I’m just so sorry that I can’t be there with her,” she said. “I love her with all my heart, and she was always, every minute, every second, in my thoughts and my prayers.”
The Daily Mail reported that though Khan’s current wife Shabana Ansari is not under formal investigation by police, but the dead millionaire’s relatives are extremely suspicious that the victim’s younger wife may have had a role in the 46-year-old’s death. It also reported that Jones was too poor to contest custody of her daughter after her divorce. The disclosure is another sign that the death of Khan has exposed the divisions within his family.
Speaking to the Chicago Sun-Times, Jones, 43, said that she was ‘shocked’ when she saw her daughter’s face on TV earlier this week. Jones – formerly Maria Rabadan – met Khan in Chicago where they worked together. They got married in 1991 but they divorced in 1997. She said that she later reached out to Khan’s relatives and was told that he had left the US for India with their daughter.
Shabana Ansari has denied she has anything to do with his death.
Reports said that the court has heard in great detail about the victim’s last meal- cooked for him by his wife Ansari- and how he was the only one at the family dinner table to eat the traditional curry that has come under much scrutiny.
She said that she did not eat the same meal as her husband because she was a vegetarian- and her father-in-law passed because he was on a diet.
The victim was the only one who ate the traditional meat Indian Kofta Curry – the day after he collected his winning check. Jasmeen also did not eat the food.
The initial toxicology report did not show up cyanide so the death was ruled as by natural causes. It was only when a relative intervened that the poison was found by further tests, reported the Daily Mail.
Since his death, Khan’s widow and siblings fought for months over the businessman’s estate, including the lottery check. His father-in-law owed tens of thousands of dollars in taxes. His 17-year-old daughter from a previous marriage had moved out of her stepmom’s home and into his sister’s after his death, reported Newsday earlier, surmising the troubles and squabbles in the family.
Reports have said that custody of the daughter might be crucial to determine who gets to keep Khan’s winning ticket money.
Khan’s wife, Shabana Ansari, has endured clutches of reporters outside the family home and business, asking even whether it was a lamb or beef curry dinner she made for Khan on the night he died.
“She’s just as curious as anyone else to get to the bottom of what caused her husband’s death,” said Al-Haroon Husain, who is representing Ansari in the case that will divide up Khan’s estate, including the $425,000 in lottery winnings, said the Newsday report.
Khan seemed to be living the American dream. He had come to the U.S. from his home in Hyderabad, India, in 1989, setting up several dry-cleaning businesses and buying into some real-estate investments.
Despite having foresworn gambling after a pilgrimage to Mecca in 2010, Khan bought a ticket in June. He jumped “two feet in the air” and shouted, “I hit a million,” he recalled at a lottery ceremony later that month, said Newsday.
He said winning the lottery meant everything to him and that he planned to use his winnings to pay off mortgages, expand his business and donate to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. He was just days from receiving his winnings when he died before dawn on July 20th at his home in Chicago’s North Side neighborhood of West Rogers Park, home to many immigrants from India and Pakistan.
Sometime that night, Khan awoke feeling ill and collapsed as he tried to get up from a chair, his wife has said, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.