Chicago Tribune - August 15, 2006
Carlos Sadovi, Tribune staff reporter, Csadovi@tribune.com

Michael L. Jackson, 38, is charged with three counts of murder and one count of aggravated vehicular hijacking for the February 2005 killing of Haroon Paryani, a 61-year-old father of four.

In opening statements, prosecutors said Jackson cold bloodily drove the cab over Paryani as he lay in the street near the intersection of Briar Place and Cambridge Avenue in the Lakeview neighborhood. The two men had gotten into a heated argument that escalated into a pushing match, said Assistant Cook County State's Attorney Mercedes Luque-Rosales.

"Then Haroon Paryani fell down, then Michael Jackson did the unthinkable, he entered the cab...put that car in drive and he aimed the cab at Haroon Paryani and rammed him with it...but that wasn't enough-he rammed him again," Luque-Rosales said. "But that wasn't enough, he rammed Mr. Paryani again, leaving him in a pool of his own blood."

Todd Pugh, one of Jackson's defense lawyers, said that Paryani was the aggressor and that Paryani had verbally attacked Jackson for being homosexual and being Jewish. He said Paryani had a history of being abusive toward other people who had been in his cab.

Pugh said prosecutors are suggesting that in the cab drive Jackson "went from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. It doesn't make sense then, and it doesn't make sense now. Michael Jackson is no Mr. Hyde."

Susan Lichtman testified that while she did not hear what the argument was over, she saw both men on the street swearing at each other and tussling about 15 feet in front of the cab. She said she saw Jackson walking back toward the cab when Paryani fell face first on the street.

Jackson then got into the cab and spent a few seconds with his hands on his lap before turning the gear shift knob up and down a few times, Lichtman said.

"He backed the cab up about a half a car length, then Mr. Jackson turned the front wheel, put it in gear into drive. He accelerated the cab, driving into Mr. Paryani," Lichtman said. "His hands were fixed [on the steering wheel]."

Lichtman said she was watching this unfold from her first-floor apartment window on Briar Place. She said she saw Jackson run over Paryani's body another time and was watching him back up a third time and accelerate toward Paryani before leaving to call police.

Defense lawyers said Jackson struggled with the gearshift and did not know that he had run over Paryani's body. Alice Weinstein, another witness from the neighborhood, said she saw the cab run over Paryani's body before it drove on Briar Place and onto Broadway Ave. and smashed into a parked car.

She said there was enough room to go around Paryani.

"I saw the car go over what I saw, it was a body," she said, adding he had "plenty of room."

Under cross-examination by Tom Breen, Jackson's defense lawyer, she said she was about 200 feet away from the body.

If convicted, Jackson could face a sentence of life in prison without parole, prosecutors have said.

Jackson was a policy and communication specialist at the Public Health Department's sexually transmitted disease/HIV/AIDS division. In 1992 he established the Hearts Foundation, a non-profit organization that describes itself as supporting Chicago's gay and lesbian community. He was fired after his arrest.

Jackson, who is HIV positive, has been charged in DuPage County with reckless assault of a nurse he allegedly spat on. He has also been charged with reckless conduct for allegedly having sexual contact with inmates in DuPage County Jail without disclosing that he is HIV positive.

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