Nurse testifies she had affair with Ohio doctor accused of poisoning wife with cyanide in 2005

Nurse: Ohio doctor had affair before wife’s death

CLEVELAND — A nurse has testified that she was the mistress of a doctor accused of poisoning his wife and says he asked her if she would stay “if something bad were to happen.”

Michelle Stephens told a jury in Cleveland on Friday that emergency room doctor Yazeed Essa (EE’-suh) asked her the question the day before his wife died in 2005.

Forty-one-year-old Essa has pleaded not guilty to murder. He is accused of giving his wife, Rosemarie Essa, a cyanide-laced capsule that she believed was a calcium pill. Her SUV crashed into an oncoming car on Feb. 24, 2005, after she took the pill.

The case was delayed for years after Essa fled the country following his wife’s death.

Essa’s lawyers have said he would not have killed his wife for Stephens.

Information from: The Plain Dealer, www.cleveland.com