In family’s fight over little girl, details about ‘toxic relationship’ emerge - The Boston Globe

For more reporting about the grandparents rights trial in R.I., click here.

WARWICK, R.I. — In a small courtroom at Kent County Family Court, a grandfather, a father, lawyers, and a judge hovered around a laptop on Thursday, listening to a video of a man screaming at a woman he didn’t know was dying of cancer.

“Enough! I’m [expletive] done! You treat me like [expletive], they treat me like [expletive], you have no [expletive] respect for anything I say,” the man could be heard shouting. “You don’t respect me as a husband! ... you’re making me [expletive] hate them, and then I’m [expletive] going to hate you, too!”

Standing near the laptop, his hands in his pockets, Scott Naso heard himself on the video, yelling at his wife, Shahrzad “Sherry” Naso, in their home in Portsmouth, about her parents. His in-laws, Dr. Jila Khorsand and Dr. Siavash Ghoreishi, dabbed at their eyes with tissues as they listened.

The original video was recorded on the Nasos’ Google home surveillance in their kitchen on April 10, 2024. The next morning, while her husband was working, Sherry Naso contacted her parents to come over and watch it. Ghoreishi said he recorded the video on his phone and saved it.

Now the video is part of the evidence that Ghoreishi and Khorsand submitted to Family Court in their petition to force Scott Naso to allow them visits with their 4-year-old granddaughter, Laila.

All week, Family Court Judge Felix Gill has been hearing testimony from Khorsand and Ghoreishi about their late daughter’s marriage to Naso, and their relationship with their son-in-law. The hearing continues Friday and is expected to resume again in early December.

Under state law, Gill has to determine that the visits are in the best interest of the child, meeting several factors including the parent’s reasons for not wanting visits.

Naso is expected to testify that he has been preventing his in-laws from seeing Laila because he believes their medical care contributed to his wife’s death last year and sickened Laila.

Khorsand was a chief pathologist at SouthCoast Hospital Group, and Ghoreishi was a pediatrician with his own practice in East Greenwich at the time. Both left their jobs after their daughter died on April 24, 2024.

Naso accuses his in-laws of Munchausen syndrome by proxy for allegedly prescribing medication and administering “excessive amounts of unjustified prescription medications without appropriate medical documentation.”

Naso, who is a narcotics detective in Middletown, said he discovered that Ghoreishi had written dozens of prescriptions for Sherry Naso and Laila. He also found text messages between Khorsand and her daughter that he said showed his mother-in-law misdiagnosed the symptoms leading to her death from cancer as related to lymphedema and weaning off Prozac.

Two days after their fight, Naso brought Sherry to a friend’s home for dinner, under the pretext of getting her seen by the friend’s father, a neurologist. Dr. Thomas Morgan, who is expected to testify, quickly determined that she had dangerous brain swelling and sent her to get care immediately.

Sherry Naso had surgery to remove a massive brain tumor, but never recovered. The breast cancer that she thought she’d survived years earlier had spread throughout her body. She died two weeks later, on April 24, 2024.

Michael Ahn, who is representing Ghoreishi and Khorsand, has sought to prevent any testimony or evidence about their alleged medical care or neglect. However, some testimony has been included, and Naso’s lawyer, Veronica Assalone, told the judge that she was eliciting testimony to show a toxic relationship between Khorsand and Ghoreishi and the Nasos.

During her four days on the witness stand this week, Khorsand testified that it was Sherry’s idea that her numbness and weakness was caused by weaning off Prozac.

When Ghoreishi took the stand on Thursday, he testified that he didn’t retire from his practice in 2020 because Sherry and Scott Naso insisted that they wanted him to be the pediatrician for their future children.

Sherry Naso could not have children, but she and Naso had several frozen embryos using a donor egg and his sperm, and a surrogate. Laila was their first child.

Sherry Naso wanted more, and Khorsand testified that she wrote a $30,000 check at her daughter’s behest to pay for a surrogate for a second child in February 2024. Khorsand testified that she wrote the check while Scott Naso was away.

Under cross-examination, Khorsand said she didn’t recall any conversations with her son-in-law about sending the check without his knowledge.

“Do you recall Scott saying unless they could work on their marriage problems in relationship to you, they were not prepared to have a second child?” Assalone asked.

“I don’t remember,” Khorsand responded.

Khorsand and Ghoreishi stayed with Laila while Naso was in the hospital with Sherry in her last days. The day she died, Ghoreishi prescribed prednisone for Laila because he thought she had the croup.

That afternoon, as people gathered at Nasos’ home to mourn, Khorsand and Ghoreishi gathered up Laila, took the drug, and held her down by her arms in the living room, using a syringe to force the medication down her throat.

“There was no discussion that I know [of], but Scott was there,” Khorsand testified.

Laila vomited up the medicine and wailed. Naso rushed in to scoop her up and take her upstairs to bed.

When asked about his demeanor, Khorsand testified: “Scott hates stains and vomit. He was very upset that the vomit was all over the rug and sofa.”

“How do you know it was over the stain and not his daughter’s condition?” asked Assalone.

“That’s how he reacts to stains,” Khorsand replied.

She testified that she was confused why Naso seemed to become cold to her and Ghoreishi after their daughter’s death. She was used to seeing Laila several times a week, if not more, when her daughter was alive. After Sherry’s death, her mother saw Laila a handful of times, always in Naso’s presence.

Khorsand said Naso and Laila were often busy, and she felt like he was making excuses. When he told Khorsand that he and Laila were taking a trip to see friends and visit Mount Washington but would return in early July, Khorsand testified that she reached out to his friends to arrange visits.

She texted people who were close friends of Sherry and Scott, including a couple she had shown the video of Naso screaming at her daughter. She texted the friends similar messages, complaining that she wasn’t getting to see Laila as often, that Naso hated her and Ghoreishi, but it was important for Laila to have her grandparents in her life. She asked if they would talk to Naso on her behalf and arrange for her and Ghoreishi to see Laila when the little girl was visiting with them.

“Grandparent’s love especially in the absence of the mother is so crucial for emotional regulation and growth of a young child,” Khorsand texted a woman she called Sherry’s “soul sister.” “More importantly, you know that is what Sherry wants.”

None of them helped her. Two weeks later, Naso sent an email to his in-laws, telling them not to contact him again.

Amanda Milkovits can be reached at amanda.milkovits@globe.com. Follow her @AmandaMilkovits.