Novack Widow Won't Face Death Penalty

Prosecutors won't seek the death penalty against the Fort Lauderdale widow charged in the deaths of her millionaire husband and mother-in-law.

Narcy Novack appeared in a New York court Wednesday, where Assistant U.S. Attorney Elliott Jacobson said the government will seek life in prison.

Jacobson also said he plans to charge Novack with a new charge of murder in aid of racketeering.

Novack, 53, and her brother and co-defendant Cristobal Veliz, 57, are accused of hiring killers to snuff out Ben Novack Jr. and mother Bernice Novack to inherit their fortune.

Novack Jr., 53, was found beaten and killed in his Rye Brook, N.Y. Hilton hotel room on July 12, 2009.

Prosecutors allege Narcy Novack let two killers into the hotel room, watched as they beat her husband with dumbbells and ordered them to cut his eyes out as he lay with his hands and legs bound with tape.

Just two months before her son was murdered, Bernice Novack was found dead inside her Fort Lauderdale home. Her death had initially been ruled an accident and was thought to have happened after she slipped and fell.

Narcy Novack, Veliz and two accomplices were charged in July 2010 in the murder of Ben Novack. She was charged in the murder of Bernice Novack in April.

Ben Novack's father built Miami Beach's Fontainebleau hotel.

Narcy Novack and Veliz have both pleaded not guilty to the charges they already face.