On February 7, 2022 a jury found defendant Marvel Salvant and Maria Moore guilty of the first-degree murder with special circumstances of Dominic Sarkar in a murder-for-hire plot.
The jury also found the allegation true that defendant Salvant had personally and intentionally discharged a firearm.
In the early morning of October 8, 2018, Mr. Sarkar was found shot to death while sleeping in his bedroom inside his residence in Fremont. Defendant Moore conspired with Defendant Salvant to murder Mr. Sarkar in order to collect $800,000 in life insurance benefits on his life.
Shortly after the murder, Defendant Moore told Fremont Police in 2018 that she had an occasional sexual relationship with Mr. Sarkar. She was the beneficiary to his life insurance policies.
In April 2016, Mr. Sarkar and Defendant Moore purchased a $500,000 life insurance policy insuring Mr. Sarkar’s life. She was listed as his domestic partner, and his two daughters were listed as contingent beneficiaries.
Months later in September of 2016, a beneficiary change was submitted, removing Mr. Sarkar’s daughters from the policy, and naming Moore’s son as the contingent beneficiary. In 2017, Mr. Sarkar purchased an additional $300,000 insurance policy insuring his life with his daughters listed as the sole beneficiaries. In January of 2018, this policy was also changed removing Mr. Sarkar’s daughters and naming Defendant Moore as the sole beneficiary.
Evidence showed that Defendant Moore wired $500 to Defendant Salvant in September of 2018, less than a month before the murder. Cell phone records showed text messages between the two Defendants leading up to and immediately after the murder. Electronic evidence including cell phone location data records showed Defendant Salvant moving from his place of work down to Fremont in Sarkar’s neighborhood. During this time, surveillance footage from neighborhood cameras near Sarkar’s residence showed Defendant Salvant’s vehicle casing the area before the murder and ultimately parking blocks away from the victim’s residence. A male was then seen on the footage riding a bicycle towards the victim’s residence from where Defendant Salvant’s vehicle parked. Minutes after the murder, the same male was seen on the video footage returning to the vehicle. Cell phone location data then showed Defendant Salvant leaving the area back to his residence in the Sacramento area.
Mr. Sarkar was 56 years old at the time of his death and an executive chef working in Mountain View.
Both defendants are expected to be sentenced on March 9.
The case was prosecuted by DDA Alex Hernandez with aide from DA Inspector Jason Riechers and Victim-Witness Advocate Lindsay Reynolds.