Jury gets cabbie murder case
Defense, prosecution give differing views of a deadly quarrel
By Carlos Sadovi
Copyright by The Chicago Tribune
Published August 19, 2006

Jurors deliberated late into Friday night in the trial of a former city of Chicago employee charged with killing a cabdriver.

Michael Jackson, 38, is charged in the slaying of Haroon Paryani, 62, who died under the wheels of his vehicle on Feb. 4, 2005. Prosecutors said Jackson drove the cab repeatedly over Paryani after the two fought over a cab fare.

During closing arguments Friday, prosecutors and defense lawyers painted starkly different portraits of the two men.

Cook County Assistant State's Atty. Lawrence X. O'Reilly told jurors that when Jackson jumped into Paryani's cab, the life of the hard-working driver would soon end.

"He didn't know that when this person got into his cab, the moments of his life were slowly ... ticking away," O'Reilly said. "Because of the defendant Michael Jackson, Haroon Paryani suffered a horrific death. This man used Haroon Paryani's mobile office--his own cab--as the murder weapon against him."

But Tom Breen, Jackson's defense lawyer, depicted the driver as a hostile man who terrorized Jackson and made him fear for his life.

An argument over the fare spilled onto the street, with the men tussling in front of Jackson's home in the intersection of West Briar Place and Cambridge Avenue. During the fight, Paryani fell onto the street. Jackson climbed back into the car and drove it over the cabbie three times, witnesses said.

Breen said Jackson was trying to get away. Jackson had testified that he did not know where Paryani was.

The fight began, Breen said, when Paryani threatened Jackson and tried to keep him from leaving the cab after Jackson, a former Chicago Department of Public Health employee, said he would report Paryani to city officials.

"This cabdriver, this businessman, this little shopkeeper was a violent, violent, mean human being. His gestures and his actions put people in a state of fear," Breen said.

"This man is a man who on Feb. 4, 2005 ... said to [Jackson], `I'm going to [expletive] kill you, you [expletive].'"

Breen asked jurors to imagine how they would react if they were in a similar situation.

"There is not a reasonable person in the world who wouldn't have said to himself, `This is the end.... This is how it ends,'" Breen said. "It would have been the most frightening part of anyone's life."

O'Reilly told jurors who sat through the four-day trial to find Jackson guilty of murder as well as aggravated vehicular hijacking. He showed a picture of Paryani before his death and a photograph taken of the man's battered face after the Ford Crown-Victoria rolled over him.

The images, when seen by Paryani's family, caused them to begin tearing up and dab their faces with tissues.

"This is Michael Jackson's handiwork," O'Reilly said.

O'Reilly referred to more than eight witnesses who testified seeing Jackson behind the wheel of the cab back it up and aim it at Paryani, who was still on the ground.

----------

csadovi@tribune.com