The New York City socialite responsible for the death of a Broadway vocal coach received additional time on the expected sentence after a judge criticized her “inability to take responsibility for her actions.”
Friday, 28-year-old Lauren Pazienza, the heiress of a successful Long Island cesspool draining company appeared in court to receive her sentence after pleading guilty in August to manslaughter charges. After expecting to be handed an eight-year sentence, Justice Felicia Mennin tacked on an extra six months for the death of 87-year-old Barbara Maier Gustern.
“I am really concerned by your apparent inability to take responsibility for your actions,” Mennin told Pazienza Friday after the woman had been made to issue a second apology, the New York Post reported.
On March 10, 2022, the socialite, said to have been out carousing with her fiancé, had allegedly called Broadway singing coach Gustern a “b*tch” when she had shoved the elderly victim to the ground, an act that Assistant District Attorney Justin McNabney had said left Gustern “bleeding profusely from the head.”
Pazienza was described as having stormed off after shoving the victim, only to then watch as first responders arrived on the scene. After taking refuge at her parents’ home on Long Island, she later turned herself in to authorities upon learning that Gustern had died five days later as a result of suffering severe brain injuries from the fall. Her surrender came only after initially deleting her social media accounts and taking her wedding website offline, prosecutors had said.
Her attorney Arthur Aidala had attempted to bring race into the case by asserting that the charges brought against his client were connected to her being a “white girl.”
“It’s just ignorant, naïve and inaccurate to say race does not play a role in this and the media coverage,” he had told the Daily Mail. “There’s only the media coverage because this is a white girl. If this was an African American young woman who pushed an African American 87-year-old woman in Inwood, Manhattan, maybe you wouldn’t even hear about it.”
Atty for NYC socialite who fatally shoved 87-yr-old says client received strict sentence because she’s whitehttps://t.co/5tnEXBfPRu
— American Wire News (@americanwire_) August 24, 2023
“I never should have pushed anybody, and I’m so sorry. I wish I could take it back but God doesn’t turn back the clocks. I’m just so sorry,” came her second attempt at an apology during the Friday sentencing.
Having pled guilty to manslaughter, Pazienza, whom Aidala said “had had drugs, she had maybe two bottles of wine, and a ton of marijuana,” was able to avoid a jury trial and, as such, also avoided the potential of a far greater sentence of up to 25 years in prison had she been convicted.
Speaking on behalf of his deceased grandmother who had been known for coaching the likes of Blondie’s Debby Harry, AJ Maier Gustern said after court of the apology, “She’s squirm and squirm and squirm. She just doesn’t seem like she is even maybe capable of accepting responsibility.”
“My baba felt safe in this city — even late at night — and you’ve ruined that.”
Also speaking out against Pazienza’s statements in court, Barbara Bleier, a friend and student of the victim, reportedly said, “What [Pazienza] said is the usual cop-out for an apology. She said, ‘I’m sorry it happened.'”
“It didn’t happen,” asserted Bleier, “she happened.”
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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