Manhattan wife tries to pay hitman for her husband with $60,000 in rare stamps: sources
Elena Sava-Adams, 57, allegedly wanted banker husband Irving Adams to be run over by a car because of an argument they had over finances.
BY JOHN MARZULLI , CORINNE LESTCH AND KERRY BURKE / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
PUBLISHED: THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013, 7:46 PM
UPDATED: FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 2013, 6:28 AM
Elena Sava-Adams, 57, was arrested Thursday for allegedly trying to pay a hitman with a stamp collection.
She went postal.
A Manhattan woman was arrested Thursday after allegedly hiring a hit man to kill her husband in exchange for $60,000 in rare stamps and jewelry, the Daily News has learned.
Elena Sava-Adams, 57, allegedly wanted her overweight husband, former banker Irving Adams, 66, to be run over by a car because of an argument they had over finances.
The onetime Israel Discount Bank of New York bigwig was fired about five years ago, and he’s been unemployed ever since, a law enforcement source told The News.
“She’s at war with her husband over money,” a source said of Sava-Adams.
The ruthless Romanian woman went to a loose-lipped intermediary, telling him she wanted her hubby to be lured to Brooklyn because she figured there would be fewer surveillance cameras there than in lower Manhattan, where the couple live.
He told her the hit man would cost her $10,000, which she “upgraded” to a valuable jewelry and German stamp collection because she couldn’t cough up the cash.
But instead of collecting the stamps and baubles, the go-between went to cops Monday and disclosed the psycho spouse’s plans, sources said.
Detectives sought the help of an investigator in the Brooklyn district attorney’s office who has experience playing a killer-for-hire.
A meeting was set up Thursday in a parking lot in Sheepshead Bay — which Sava-Adams allegedly chose because her mother-in-law lives there. They got into the undercover’s car and drove to Shore Road to discuss the murder, according to sources.
Little did she know the meeting was being taped, and she was arrested as soon as the incriminating statements slipped from her mouth, the sources said.
Sava-Adams had planned to tell the hit man in a couple of days when she wanted the murder carried out, sources said, but instead she found herself being questioned at the 61st Precinct stationhouse Thursday night.
She was charged with conspiracy and criminal solicitation.
Neighbors at the couple’s Battery Park City pad said the pair left a weird impression on those they encountered.
“She airs all her dirty laundry in the hallway on her cell phone because she can’t stand to be in the apartment with him,” said a neighbor who declined to give his name.
Others noticed that the avid skiers who take two- to four-week jaunts in Colorado — would often dine on junk food.
“They’re odd,” said another neighbor. “They seem to live on Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and pizza.”
Investigators believe the wife would have collected Adams’ insurance money, but it’s unclear how much that payday would have been.
This may not be the first time Sava-Adams put her personal stamp on crime — according to records, she once started a sham business called “Elena Stamp Company” in Queens.
