Jury begins deliberations in Naresh Bhatt murder trial after closing arguments

Welcome into the DMV zone. Let's get you behind the scenes on all the stories we're working on here in real time. I'm Marina Morocco. A busy day as we kick off with a Fox 5 News alert. The Naresh Bosch. Murder trial is now in the hands of the jury. After weeks of testimony, the defense and prosecution making those final arguments, jurors begin deliberations in the case that has drawn national attention. Bhatt accused of killing his wife, Mamta, who disappeared from their Manassas Park home back in 2024. Her body has never been found in a stunning turn. During testimony, Bhatt admitted to dismembering and disposing of her body, but claims that she died. By suicide, trial attorney Dmitri Pikelis is with us here with the latest from court. So everybody has rested here. The jury will get this case. Not tomorrow. Court has closed, but that will be come Thursday. What do you make of closing arguments where the prosecution painted Bhatt as a liar and the defense said this is all he had to do? Well, I mean, the prosecution's still got the burden of proof and they're going to use every fact. At their disposal, what they want to focus everyone on is the whole picture and not individual facts. And that's what they honed in on today. Is there that reasonable doubt on that murder charge that he obviously on the stand admitted to the two lesser charges here, but on the murder charge, that is what the government has to prove to your point beyond a reasonable doubt. Did he murder his wife? And she said, he says that she committed suicide. Well, here's the situation, and this is very important for the viewers to understand. We're not asked, the jury's not being asked if Naresh Bhatt is a sympathetic man. It really doesn't matter if he is or isn't, okay? What the jury's being asked is to determine whether the prosecution has proven him guilty of murder beyond a reasonable doubt. And if so, was it premeditated or unlawful? That's it. He's not a sympathetic man. By most accounts, however, that does not absolve the prosecution of their duty to prove him guilty of murder beyond a reasonable doubt. That's a big distinction. There were suspicious Google searches that had happened, and obviously unclear who had searched them, but the prosecution alleging that it wasn't a rush bet, but including what happens if a spouse disappears, can I divorce a wife who is lost, what happens to the dead of a person who's died. To your point, maybe he wasn't sympathetic, but those searches, does that aid the prosecution here in closing the gap on the doubt? Well, taking the whole picture, it doesn't prove anything because we don't know that he did it. And again, that's a legal analysis. But then you've got the converse side that this is enormously an emotional case. And jurors are human. So they're going to take their life experiences and their beliefs into the jury room. But they're being tasked with jury instructions that they need to follow. So, yeah, you know, did he kind of do it? Well, that's not really enough. It depends on how strict the jury sticks to the instructions. But listen, let's face it. There's a practical, which is enormously emotional, than the legal, which they have to follow very strictly. How much leeway does the jury have in convicting someone who's charged of murder on the count? Is it a homicide one situation where it's premeditated or is it second degree murder? And how much does that play when they're behind closed doors deliberating? Well, it's up to whether they believe the Commonwealth proved him guilty of murder beyond a reasonable doubt, and what were the circumstances. If it was premeditated as if he was planning it and planning it and planning it, well, then that would be murder one. If it just happened unlawfully, and they believe that's all the Commonwealth has proved, then it would be murder two. So that's the distinction. Yeah, they did start deliberating about two hours ago. I know that it's always one of these things, like if the jury comes back quickly, then this is a slam dunk for the government. If they take long, there's a potential there for that seed of doubt to have been planted. You can never really decide what a jury is going to end. We saw, obviously, with some of the cases that have captured national headlines, including the Lindsay Clancy trial. This could take days, weeks. We just don't know. Is there any way to kind of assess, other than being in the courtroom as an attorney, can you read faces? Can you kind of get a sense of where the juries stand? I mean, I don't look at the faces, and I'll tell you why. Every jury is like a fingerprint. It's a unique, unique specimen. I will say this much. Every jury I've ever been before, and my observations when I'm not trying a case, is that the jurors, no matter what walk of life they come from, take their duty extremely seriously. It's really easy to sit back here, watch your program, watch court TV, and make assessments. But when you're in the spotlight and you're the juror, you take those jury charges very seriously. So don't make the mistake of thinking, oh, they're coming back, they're going to fry him. No, they take their job very seriously. They want to give it the requisite focus. Look, they have other things going on in their life. They're going to probably immediately take a poll. They'll elect a foreperson. You know, there's dynamics there that are in play. There's also fatigue. I mean, they're listening to powerful testimony and then argument. And you're tasked with a man's life and a family who's now we know has lost their daughter, their sister, family member. That's enormous. They will take it very seriously. I've tried cases of Prince William. I've tried cases before this judge. These folks, I'm very confident, will take their job seriously. Dimitri, we appreciate the legal insight. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me on. Topic number two here is Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing an impeachment push from Capitol Hill with the House set to take the measure up today, at least for that procedural vote, which will happen in the next couple of hours here. Republican Congressman Thomas Massie introducing eight articles of impeachment, accusing Hegseth of abuse of power and unlawful military actions, including his role in the war with Iran. The effort comes as Republicans now face internal divisions following those midterm election losses. This is Hakeem Jeffries pushing back, calling the impeachment effort a, quote, Political spectacle and insisting he has done nothing wrong. It tells our enemies, Iran, the cartels, every adversary watching that the United States will actually punish its own warriors and its own civilian leadership for successfully executing lawful military operations. The president also coming to his defense. We've got national security reporter for The Washington Post, Dan Lamell, with us here. Dan, this seems as though at 5.30, I believe, there will be at least a first procedural vote here in the House to see if there's a coalition of votes to get this to proceed. Any sense of where things stand at this hour? I think it's possible this passes, but it's by no means a certain certainty. I think there are people who have concerns about some of the issues Secretary Hegseth raised, particularly on the Republican side. The Republicans still have the majority, so we're very much waiting to see how many of those seats may flip and actually vote in favor of at least advancing this to the Senate. Because when it was presented yesterday by Massey, it seemed as though he was the lone Republican who was looking to push this. Could he have cajoled one or two more potential congresspeople who may be on their way out that are Republicans to join him on the efforts? I think that's hard to say. I mean, he came into this with a unique perspective. He obviously tried to bring this up in September. It was tabled back then. He held true to his word and followed through now. So I think part of the factor here is really whether or not there are enough Republicans who are willing to vote. So, uh... One way or the other on this, who's in town, who's willing to put their name on the line during the lame duck, especially those lawmakers who may otherwise just be going home in a few weeks and done with public service. Right. We've certainly seen presidents be impeached, especially in recent memory. However, this could be historical. No sitting U.S. defense secretary has previously been impeached. What does this look like? Because there are eight articles of impeachment. It's not just over the war in Iran. This is widespread what the allegations are. Yeah, I mean, this ranges from the Iran war, but also some of the earlier issues. Congressman Massie raised the boat strikes, you know, the strikes on these alleged drug boats that occurred pretty regularly at one point earlier in the administration. Thank you. You know, there were questions whether all of those boats were as presented by the government, whether or not there was fishermen on some of them. Whether or not they had followed all of the legal boxes that they would need to check to do that sort of thing, that has never really received the scrutiny in Congress that I think a number of people assumed it would. So it's going to receive that scrutiny in the new Congress, but this is maybe a preview of that to come. All right. We will see what happens at 5.30, and then we'll go from there. Good to talk to you, Dan. We appreciate it. And check out Dan's reporting there with The Washington Post. Topic number three here is Fairfax County Public Schools considering changing school start times for students across the district. The biggest goal there is getting middle school students into the classroom at 8 a.m. or later instead of their current 7.30 a.m. start time. District officials say that research shows that later start times can improve students' sleep, academic performance, and overall well-being. We've got Fairfax Now reporter James Cullum with what this schedule could look like. And it's kind of all over the place. There's a myriad of options here from Fairfax County, including one that would just move everybody back by 30 minutes. Yeah, I mean, this... Conversation about school start times was held off for a year. Last year, Fairfax County Public Schools, they talked about... Changing these school start times, but then they kind of put it on the back burner because they had to deal with redistricting. Now, we're looking at secondary and high schools and elementary schools. They start between 8.10 and 8.30. Like you said, Fairfax County's 23 middle schools start at 7.30 a.m. So we have a proposal that's going to be unveiled. There is a public hearing and community input for Thursday, a public hearing. We're going to have a public hearing at Luther Jackson Middle School. This is going to give the public a chance to kind of, you know, address their concerns, look at logistics, infrastructure challenges, kind of shift in schedules. And in January, this full proposal should be going to the school board for consideration. It could potentially go into effect as early as, you know, August 2027. So next school year, it could start. We could start seeing middle schoolers getting up a little bit later than that, starting at seven. 7.30 a.m. at school, that's pretty tough. Yeah, for elementary school students where that start time, I believe, is already 7.30, would that be moved back? Elementary school students start school between 8.10 and 8.30. I must have misread that. And going back to 2015 when the school board made changes to the high school, high school start times back in 2015, they were at like 7.20 a.m. And so that shifted to now after 8.10, 8.30. The same conversation is going to be happening with middle schools. We're not going to have an answer until probably January. All right, we'll see what happens and what comes of it. James Cullum there with Fairfax Now. We appreciate it. Thank you. We're taking a quick break, and we'll be right back here on the DMV Zone.