“I’m trying to move on," Scott Naso says
Credit: Scott Naso
NEED TO KNOW
- Widowed father Scott Naso is fighting his late wife’s parents over visitation rights for his 4-year-old daughter
- Scott claims in court that his in-laws, both doctors, contributed to his wife’s death and harmed their granddaughter’s health
- On Monday, a Rhode Island judge denied Scott’s request to halt the trial but dismissed a key witness for the grandparents
After six months of fighting with his deceased wife’s parents over visitation rights of his 4-year-old daughter, on Monday, April 20, widowed father Scott Naso had his request to suspend the trial denied by a family court judge in Rhode Island.
“I’ve been living in survival mode for so long. I have the constitutional right to raise my daughter without the government interfering,” Scott tells PEOPLE. “It’s school vacation week and I want to spend time with my daughter, but instead I am in court.”
“I would love to take her to Disney, or somewhere,” he adds. “But I can barely afford to buy groceries or put gas in my car.”
Scott's lawyer, Veronica Assalone, tells PEOPLE that halting the proceedings is necessary to “stop the bleeding and stop the constitutional harm to my client."
"No one should be put through this, to have to spend $500,000 to defend his constitutional right," she says.
Scott’s wife, Shahrzad “Sherry” Naso, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2017, just a year after she and Scott met. The couple married in September 2020 and welcomed Laila via a surrogate the following year.
Sherry's cancer later returned and she died in April 2024.
In January 2025, Scott lodged a complaint about the couple with the Rhode Island Department of Health accusing them of Munchausen syndrome by proxy (now formally known as factitious disorder imposed on another) against both Sherry and Laila.
Scott blames his late wife’s parents, both doctors, for her death, claiming in the complaint that they gave medical advice that interfered with Sherry’s treatment and masked her symptoms when her cancer returned. He also claims that his wife's father wrote more than 36 prescriptions for Laila before she turned 3.
Credit: Scott Naso
Siavash Ghoreishi, a pediatrician in private practice, and Jila Khorsand, a pathologist with a large medical group, both relinquished their medical licenses shortly after their daughter's death and have disputed Scott's claims.
Additionally, Scott has filed an emergency motion with the Rhode Island Supreme Court to determine whether the state law allowing grandparents to sue for visitation rights of their grandchildren is constitutional.
Assalone tells PEOPLE she learned Tuesday that the case filed in the state's highest court is moving forward for consideration.
In issuing his decision against halting the trial, Family Court Judge Felix Gill said he believes the statute is written to protect the constitutional rights of parents.
“I believe the statute here, in the state of Rhode Island, is narrowly tailored [in such a way] that the language puts the burden solely and wholly on the petitioners to overcome by clear and convincing evidence that his decision is not reasonable,” Gill said.
Additionally, the judge dismissed a key witness for the grandparents.
It was revealed in court that during a morning break, lawyer Barbara Grady talked with her client, Donna Blanchard (the witness, who was a close friend of Sherry’s and is close to her parents) in the courtroom hallway and told her about some of the things Scott had just testified about in court, which violated the court's sequestration order.
Grady apologized to the judge for breaking the sequestration order.
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Following Monday’s proceedings, Scott says that his in-laws are “deceitful and manipulative."
“Their whole focus is to make me miserable,” he says. “I’m trying to move on."
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