The estranged husband of a Herricks woman lay in wait, hiding inside her home for 45 minutes before he attacked her, sealing her mouth and nose with a rag soaked in cyanide, killing her, prosecutors said at his arraignment Thursday in Nassau County Court.
Asif Qureshi, 53, an unemployed software engineer from Bellerose, Queens, pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and two counts of burglary in his wife’s poisoning death and break-in to the Larch Drive home of Aleena Asif, 46, an accountant.
The couple had a rocky relationship for years, records show. She had filed for divorce in 2023, but the couple reconciled the next year, according to court records. Asif filed for divorce again in 2025.
Her divorce attorney, Lance H. Meyer, said that they had two properties together, but had come to a separation agreement before she refiled for divorce.
  WHAT NEWSDAY FOUNDAsif Qureshi, 53, pleaded not guilty to charges of asphyxiating his estranged wife, Aleena Asif, 46, with a cyanide-soaked ragPolice conducting a wellness check found her dead in her bedroom with burn marks on her faceNassau County prosecutors said that the lethal chemical poison seared Aleena Asif’s lungs, depriving her of oxygen
“There were financial issues and they had kids together, all the usual things that happen with a divorce,” he said.
During their first separation, Meyer said that the wife wanted him to get psychological counseling.
“She was scared of him,” the divorce lawyer said. “His temper, I think, was the biggest issue.”
He said that the second divorce proceeding was just beginning and there had not been much interaction between the estranged husband and wife leading up to the attack.
She tried to serve him divorce papers on Oct. 9, but he refused to take them, police said previously. He came to her home the next day and then for “multiple days that showed a pattern of stalking her,” Nassau Police Det. Capt. Stephen Fitzpatrick said at a news conference soon after his arrest.
Defense lawyer Stanley Rubin said his client will fight the charges.
“Mr. Qureshi is presumed innocent, and he has entered a plea, vigorously entered a plea of not guilty on all counts of the indictment, and we’re prepared to meet this case in court,” the attorney said.
Investigators said Asif Qureshi lay in wait outside the home on Oct. 17 for their couple’s 18-year-old daughter to leave for classes at St. John’s University, Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly said.
Nearly an hour later, Aleena Asif left with the couple’s 7-year-old daughter and 14-year-old son to take them to school, according to prosecutors.
Once the wife and kids were gone, Asif Qureshi — carrying a red-and-white tote bag, wearing a mask, a dark hooded jacket, baseball hat and black gloves — unlocked the front door and slipped inside, waiting for her return, authorities said.
The mother came home at 8 a.m. with her young daughter as her estranged husband was “hiding in the shadows,” Donnelly said, but she left again about an hour later to take her daughter to school, according to the prosecutors’ timeline.
At 9 a.m., Asif returned home again for the last time.
“He waited for her, waited until the children went to school and she came back and poisoned her with cyanide, which is an awful and horrific way to die,” Donnelly said. “Basically, he seared her lungs. She took a breath and the cyanide just burns your lungs.”
Just before 11 a.m., investigators saw him on surveillance cameras slip outside the Herricks home, walk to Marcus and Denton avenues, get on an electric scooter and ride toward his Queens home.
When Aleena Asif failed to pick her daughter up from school, the girl called her older sister, who in turn called the police, prosecutors said.
Police found the woman in her bedroom, face up and dead with red burn marks around her mouth. The medical examiner found she had died of asphyxia from cyanide, Donnelly said.
During their investigation, Nassau County detectives saw Qureshi on convenience store surveillance footage, unmasked, wearing the same clothes. They also obtained other video recordings of him circling the home on his scooter, prosecutors said.
The bag he was seen carrying and black latex gloves were found in his Queens home during a police search, according to authorities.
“A home should be a place of sanctuary, but this defendant turned it into a house of horrors,” Donnelly said.
Qureshi, who faces 25 years behind bars, will return to court on Feb. 18.