Peter Paras, a Red Bank family law attorney who was run over in a by a Jeep in the parking lot of the Galleria shopping and office complex in 2002, took the stand yesterday in the trial of the former client accused of ordering his murder.
From Paras’ testimony, according to an account in today’s Asbury Park Press:
“Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement,” Paras said, describing his walk across the office parking lot in the late afternoon hours of June 21, 2002. “I know the car hit me. I know the car picked up speed. But it happened so quickly, I couldn’t do anything about it.”
Nicholas Lucarella, a former Millstone Township man who now lives in Rockland County, New York, is accused of ordering a hit on Paras. Lucarella was involved with a bitter dispute with his ex-wife over custody of their three children, and suffered a legal setback just two weeks before Paras was run over, Paras testified in state Superior Court in Freehold.