Police Detective Knew Something Was ‘Very, Very Wrong’ with Wife. After Her Death, He Dug Into His Doctor In-Laws

Long before their battle over grandparents’ rights in Rhode Island, Scott Naso and his in-laws, Jila Khorsand and Siavash Ghoreishi, had a decent relationship, he says

Things got worse after he and wife Sherry had a daughter and Sherry’s cancer returned — leading Scott to look closer at her parents’ medical care

“There were no boundaries,” says Scott, a 40-year-old narcotics detective. “I tried talking to them, and they would just spin it so [I was] the problem”

Scott Naso’s headline-making relationship with his in-laws, Jila Khorsand and Siavash Ghoreishi, was not always this fraught with contentiousness and mutual disdain.

In the early days of his courtship with and marriage to their only daughter, Shahrzad, whom everyone called Sherry, Scott and her doctor parents shared family outings and meals in addition to what Scott calls “wonderful” times at their five-bedroom, six-bathroom lakefront home in Raymond, Maine.

But once Scott and Sherry’s daughter, Laila, arrived in July 2021, things began to deteriorate, with Scott accusing his in-laws of interfering in their marriage and in the parenting of their child.

“There were no boundaries,” Scott, a 40-year-old narcotics detective, tells PEOPLE in an interview in this week’s issue about his two-year legal battle with Sherry’s family. “I tried talking to them, and they would just spin it so [I was] the problem.”

“I … talked with my therapist about how to talk to them,” Scott says. “I tried different methods of communication and they all fell flat.”

He says he also tried to see if Sherry could get through to them in her own way, but she shrugged off the idea of going against them. “They’re my parents,” he says she would say.

The mounting tension erupted in Sherry’s final months, as she grew sicker and sicker.

Sherry and Scott Naso with daughter Laila.Scott NasoScott says he realized something was “very, very wrong” when his wife — who had had breast cancer in 2017 — began suffering from disturbing physical ailments, including weakness, numbness and bowel irregularities, in early 2024.

“[Her parents] kept saying that nothing was wrong, that it was just her withdrawing from Prozac,” Scott says. “They were very convincing, and I believed them. They’re doctors.”

On April 12 of that year, Scott says, he essentially “tricked” Sherry into going to see a family friend and neurologist who took one look at her and told her to get to the hospital immediately for imaging.

It was soon discovered that her cancer had not only returned, it had metastasized: She had a tumor the size of a golf ball in her brain. Sherry had surgery on April 13, 2024, but never regained consciousness. She died 11 days later at 37.

In his grief and despair, Scott came to suspect that what he had felt was overbearing behavior by his in-laws was actually something more distressing. In a subsequent complaint to state health authorities, he accused Sherry’s parents of “negligent and reckless medical care” and of drawing Sherry into a “cycle of chronic illness and dependency [on] their care.”

Scott says today that he believes his wife would still be alive and that Laila, now 4, would still have her mother had it not been for the grandparents’ bad medical advice.

He also claims their negligence extended to Laila. On the day Sherry died, as people gathered at Scott and Sherry’s Portsmouth, R.I., home, he says he heard Laila crying in another room and allegedly found Khorsand holding his daughter down while Ghoreishi squirted prednisone — a steroid commonly used for inflammation — through a syringe-type device into her throat.

Scott says Laila wasn’t ill at the time and that he had not given them permission to administer drugs to his daughter.

Ghoreishi later testified in court that he thought Laila was sick with croup and prednisone could treat it. He and Khorsand, who both retired when their daughter died, have denied claims of wrongdoing and haven’t been charged with a crime.

From left: Siavash Ghoreishi and Jila Khorsand in court in 2025 and Scott Naso in May.Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe via Getty; Christopher ChurchillAfter Sherry’s death, Scott looked more closely at her parents, drawing on his skills as an investigator. He poured over medical filings and went through Sherry’s phone.

He says he eventually discovered that Ghoreishi, who was Laila’s pediatrician, wrote what he calls an “outrageous” number of prescriptions for his wife and daughter: more than 100 for Sherry and more than 36 for Laila, findings that were later confirmed by prescription records he obtained.

State regulations and medical ethics urge against physicians treating their immediate family members, but it’s not illegal.

In January 2025, Scott lodged his complaint against his in-laws with the Rhode Island Department of Health. By then, he and Sherry’s parents were already locked in an acrimonious court dispute.

Shortly after Sherry died, Scott cut off contact with her parents and wouldn’t allow them to see Laila. They, in turn, filed a petition in family court to get visitation with Laila, and in October 2024 were allowed supervised contact with their granddaughter under what’s referred to as a grandparents’ rights provision in Rhode Island law.

That stopped in January 2025 when the court-appointed supervisor had a temporary conflict and Scott filed a motion to stop the visits because, he believed, they were harmful to Laila.

In October, another judge took up the case and a lengthy trial over visitation commenced.

The proceedings revealed allegations of dysfunction on both sides, with Khorsand and Ghoreishi claiming that Scott was the problem and that he could be emotionally manipulative and volatile and Scott claiming he did not feel Laila was safe with her grandparents.

On April 29, Judge Felix Gill denied the grandparents’ petition for visitation rights with their granddaughter.

And while he ruled in Scott’s favor, Gill took multiple opportunities to criticize the widowed father, saying, among other things, that Scott put his own interests above those of his daughter’s and that based on the evidence presented, “It is in Laila’s best interest to visit with her grandparents.”

Gill also pushed back on Scott’s suspicions about his in-laws’ medical decisions but said he wouldn’t “delve” into potential misconduct.

“I have to give deference to a fit and proper custodial parent to refuse visitation,” Gill ruled in siding with Scott. “Parties have all agreed that he is fit and proper.”

(Khorsand and Ghoreishi’s lawyer declined to comment to PEOPLE and referred back to Gill’s final decision. It is unclear if they will appeal.)

Scott, who says he has amassed more than $500,000 in legal and other fees during the course of the trial, was found in contempt of court for not allowing continued visitation in early 2025, per the previous court decision, and was fined $2,500.

He is appealing and pushing back on the judge’s characterization of him. He also plans to pursue a constitutional challenge to his state’s grandparents’ rights law.

“I’m in search of something simple: justice,” Scott says. “In my opinion it’s three things: truth, righteousness and, more importantly, accountability.”