By Marlyn Montilla
01 Oct 2023, 17:20 PM EDT
A former event planner, who pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in August, was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison after unprovokedly pushing an 87-year-old Broadway singing teacher onto a Manhattan sidewalk in 2022.
Felicia Menin, a Manhattan state Supreme Court judge, on Friday added six months to the eight years already agreed to in the plea deal for 28-year-old Lauren Pazienza, saying she did not believe the woman had taken responsibility. for his actions.
The defendant left Barbara Maier Gustern bleeding on a Chelsea sidewalk after Pazienza pushed her and fractured her skull on March 10, 2022.
The elderly woman suffered a “massive hemorrhage” on the left side of her brain and died after spending five days in hospital.
Pazienza could have faced up to 25 years in prison if he had not accepted the plea deal and been found guilty by the jury.
As part of the agreement, the woman admitted to insulting Gustern and deliberately pushing her to the ground. The reason remains unclear.
Prosecutors previously said the defendant ran over the victim on a Chelsea sidewalk, called her “b–” and threw her against the sidewalk from behind.
Pazienza has been detained in Rikkers Island prison since March 2022, when a judge revoked her bail.
“Lauren Pazienza aggressively pushed Barbara Gustern to the ground and walked away as the beloved New Yorker lay there bleeding,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement after she pleaded guilty.
“Today’s statement holds Pazienza accountable for his deadly actions.”
The deceased was a vocal coach and her clients included celebrities such as the singer, Blondie Debbie Harry, as well as Kimilee Bryant, from South Carolina, who told Gustern that she was like her “New York mom” and told him told Fox News that the professor and her late husband had welcomed her when she arrived in New York for her first Broadway stint in “The Phantom of the Opera.”
“We became very close, because they actually adopted many types of stray dogs, as they called us, for the holidays because we couldn’t come home,” he said. “I couldn’t go home for Thanksgiving. “We had a show.”
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