More time has been tacked onto an eight-year prison sentence for a New York woman who fatally shoved an 87-year-old Broadway singing coach.

A New York judge sentenced a woman who pleaded guilty to fatally shoving an 87-year-old Broadway singing coach onto a Manhattan sidewalk to six months more in prison than the eight years that had been previously reached in a plea deal.

    • resin85@lemmy.caEnglish
      63·
      1 year ago

      The abhorrent details from another article:

      Lauren Pazienza spent the night of March 10 gallery-hopping with her fiancé in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood in celebration of 100 days until their wedding, her fiancé told authorities, according to a court document.

      Pazienza had “several glasses of wine” during the evening before the pair stopped at a food cart for something to eat, according to the document filed by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

      The pair went to Chelsea Park to eat their meal, but before they were done, an employee told them they would have to leave because the park was closing, the document said. Chelsea Park closes at 11 p.m.

      “The defendant became angry, started shouting and cursing at the park employee, threw her food onto her fiancé, and stormed out of the park,” according to prosecutors.

      Meanwhile, Pazienza “stormed” down the street and spotted Barbara Maier Gustern, prosecutors said.

      Gustern, “in what turned out to be her dying words” before she lost consciousness, told a friend that a woman with dark hair “ran across the straight,” directly toward her, called her a b---- and pushed her as hard she “had ever been hit in her life” toward a metal fence, prosecutors said.

      Gustern, according to a witness, “fell in an arc, falling directly on her head,” according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

      Pazienza “turned around and walked away, leaving Ms. Gustern prone on the sidewalk, bleeding from the head,” prosecutors said.

      Pazienza called her fiancé after the assault, he told authorities. When they reconnected, she picked a physical fight with him, accusing him of ruining her night, prosecutors said. He insisted the two head home, but security video from the area showed that Pazienza stayed in the area long enough to watch the ambulance arrive for Gustern.

      She later told her fiancé what she had done, he told authorities. When he asked her why she would do such a thing, she said the woman "might have said something” to her.

    • kn33@lemmy.worldEnglish
      52·
      1 year ago

      According to prosecutors, Pazienza attacked Gustern after storming out of a nearby park, where she and her fiance had been eating meals from a food cart.

      This is speculation, but sounds like maybe she got in an argument or was angry about something and was storming off somewhere. NYC is crowded and if you’re angry, trying to get somewhere, and not composed (getting into the mindset here, not what I really think) then “this old bitch in my way fuckin’ move arrrggg!” shove

      Obviously, there’s nothing right about it and most of the time people behave themselves, even when they’re angry. Sometimes, though, they don’t. This isn’t a justification in any sense - more of a speculation in furtherance of an attempt at comprehension.

      • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
        15·
        1 year ago

        Her fiance perspective is that there was an argument and the suspect storms off and murders someone. Like, maybe now is a good time to see you’re engaged to a monster.

    • BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social
      11·
      1 year ago

      Guessing you haven’t spent much time in NYC?

      In such a dense environment, even the very small proportion of the general population that’s deeply mentally ill and violent can be very visible and do a lot of damage, and we don’t really have any good tools to deal with them except for waiting for them to attack someone.

      • NOT_RICK@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        1 year ago

        I live in NJ, been to NYC quite a bit. I saw “event planner from Long Island” and was confused as that doesn’t sound like the kind of NYC crazy person I’ve come to expect (at least the physically violent kind) but once someone mentioned she was intoxicated it clicked for me.

        • boyi@lemmy.sdf.org
          3·
          1 year ago

          She has history of bullying her classmate. Some comments in nyc subreddit suggesting her father is a mafia - being cesspool contractor has something to do about it? I don’t see the connection anyway but if that’s the case, that could explain a bit.

    • porkins@sh.itjust.works
      8·
      1 year ago

      She was drunk and got angry that the kicked her out of the park, so assaulted an old woman. Bitch deserves more than just 8.5 years. I prefer that her citizenship is revoked as well.

      • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
        44·
        1 year ago

        Revoking citizenship is illegal under the Geneva convention and the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. Signatory countries aren’t allowed to intentionally make a person stateless. It is actually a big problem that has been abused several times throughout history. Nazi’s revoking Jewish citizenship is a prime example. More recently, we have the Uyghur Muslims in China.

        The issue with revoking citizenship as a punishment is that it only pushes the burden of citizenship onto another country. It also removes any kinds of legal protections that a citizen may have had. Imagine if a country only allows citizens a right to an attorney. All that country would need to do to remove your legal council is strip your citizenship. Even if you later manage to get the citizenship back, you’ve still lost your original court case because you were forced to go through it without a lawyer.

      • NOT_RICK@lemmy.worldEnglish
        41·
        1 year ago

        Well that’s gross. I’m not comfortable with giving the government the power to revoke a person’s citizenship; sounds ripe for abuse, but I get the outrage