2 Found Guilty in 2018 Murder of Indian American Chef Dominic Sarkar in California’s Bay Area
- Maria Moore, who had a relationship with the Indian American, conspired with Marvel Salvant to kill him in order to collect $800,000 in life insurance benefits.
A woman and her accomplice were convicted early this week in the 2018 murder of popular Indian American chef Dominick Sarkar, 56, in California’s Bay area, in what the prosecutors described as a “sophisticated murder-for-hire” act for financial gain. The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office said a jury on Feb. 7 found Marvel Salvant and Maria Moore guilty of first-degree murder with special circumstances in Sarkar’s killing.
Prosecutors said Moore, who had a relationship with Sarkar, conspired with Salvant to murder Sarkar in order to collect $800,000 in life insurance benefits. He was shot to death at night while he was asleep in his rented house in Fremont, where he lived with other residents. Sarkar, who was the executive chef at Rangoli in Fremont at the time of his death, was to leave for India the next day for a month-long trip.
A press release from Alameda County District Attorney’s Office said that Sarkar and Moore had purchased a $500,000 life insurance policy in April 2016. Sarkar’s three daughters in India were also listed as beneficiaries. In September 2016, the policy was altered by Moore, eliminating the daughters as contingent beneficiaries.
A year later, Sarkar added $300,000 policy and again listed his daughters as contingent beneficiaries. A police investigator found the policy was later modified to add Moore as the primary beneficiary and remove Sarkar’s daughters, the press release said. The DA’s office said Moore wired $500 to Salvant less than a month before the murder.
Citing investigations, the press release noted that an analysis of cell phone records and surveillance video found that Salvant had been casing Sarkar’s home days before the murder. On the night of the murder, prosecutors said Salvant sent a text message to Moore stating “It’s a waiting game” and another that said: “I am set to do everything tonight.”
The owner of Passage to India, the Mountain View restaurant where Sarkar previously worked, told KPIX in 2018 that Moore pretended to mourn Sarkar’s death — even inviting his family to stay with her during his funeral. “I thought she was a very nice person, very nice,” Taneja said at the time. “She was crying a lot after he passed away, she used to cry a lot.”
Both Moore and Salvant are expected to be sentenced on March 9.