Woman Who Killed Famous Broadway Singing Coach Sentenced to Only 8.5 Years in Prison
“Manhattan state Supreme Court Judge Felicia Mennin on Friday added six months to the eight years already agreed upon in Lauren Pazienza’s plea deal, saying she didn’t believe Pazienza had taken responsibility for her actions.”
In March of 2022, a famous Broadway singing coach named Barbara Maier Gustern was randomly pushed to the ground in New York City. She was 87 years old and died of her injuries.
Authorities in the city quickly began looking for the assailant.
Barbara Maier Gustern has died from her injuries. The person who did this needs to be found and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Please come forward should you have any information about this case. pic.twitter.com/np9W5ilAF2
— Erik Bottcher (@ebottcher) March 16, 2022
The attacker turned out to be a 27-year-old event planner from Long Island named Lauren Pazienza who did not know the victim, but was angry and had been drinking.
Pazienza was sentenced this week to 8.5 years in prison as part of plea deal. If the case had gone to trial, she was looking at 25 years.
FOX News reports:
New York woman, 28, sentenced to 8½ years in prison in fatal shoving of 87-year-old singing coach
A 28-year-old former event planner, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in August, has been sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in prison for the unprovoked shoving of an 87-year-old Broadway voice coach onto a Manhattan sidewalk last year.
Manhattan state Supreme Court Judge Felicia Mennin on Friday added six months to the eight years already agreed upon in Lauren Pazienza’s plea deal, saying she didn’t believe Pazienza had taken responsibility for her actions.
Pazienza left Barbara Maier Gustern bleeding on a Chelsea sidewalk soon after the woman cracked her head March 10, 2022, as a result of Pazienza’s shove. She suffered a “massive hemorrhage” on the left side of her brain and died after five days in a hospital.
The defendant could have faced 25 years in prison if she hadn’t taken the plea deal and had been found guilty by a jury.
As part of a plea deal, Pazienza admitted to hurling profanities at Gustern and intentionally shoving her to the ground. Her motive remains unclear.
Pazienza reportedly wept at the sentencing.
Socialite Lauren Pazienza slapped with longer prison sentence as judge slammed ‘inability to take responsibility’ https://t.co/HRz6zCIPmN pic.twitter.com/TQeaKuZPTL
— New York Post (@nypost) September 29, 2023
The Daily Mail has more details:
Pazienza, who is the heiress to a large cesspool draining empire in Long Island, has been held at Rikers Island for over a year since the motiveless attack…
Prior to the apparently random attack, Pazienza had downed several glasses of wine with her fiancé while celebrating 100 days until their wedding. She may also have taken a Xanax…
When she was told the park was closing, she allegedly became enraged and charged Gustern on the street, shoving the 87-year-old to the ground and calling her a ‘b****’.
She is then said to have watched as an ambulance crew took the frail older woman away with blood seeping from her head.
Pazienza, prosecutors claim, then spent the next two weeks trying to cover her tracks. She quit her job, deleted her social media pages and even stashed her cell phone at her aunt’s house in Long Island after fleeing her Astoria apartment, where she lives with her Microsoft-employee fiancé.
After several weeks, she eventually handed herself into the NYPD after the force released footage of her as a suspect in the attack.
The Daily Mail report goes on to interview one of Pazienza’s former classmates who said that she is a child of privilege who was given everything she ever wanted by her parents.
What a waste.
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Comments
She’s lucky that she didn’t go to the Capitol on 1/6
Socialite? She looks more like a Social-Heavy.
Well-stated.
LOL,
“Prior to the apparently random attack, Pazienza had downed several glasses of wine with her fiancé while celebrating 100 days until their wedding. She may also have taken a Xanax…”
First rate wife material there, boys.
Rikers Island mailing addy. Hurry.
No one was marrying a spoiled rotten blob for love. It was obviously a money grab.
Well she will at least have a few things she will benefit from. Her “fiancé” will likely wait for the cash cow to get released. He probably doesn’t have many other options for that kind of dough elsewhere. If he did, he wouldn’t be anywhere near this woman.
With her name and the fact that she’s an heiress to a “cesspool draining service” her daddy will more than likely know people who can get her released early.
She’ll also be many pounds lighter, knowing that prison food isn’t the best food available. But I doubt she’ll be able to get any semblance of fine wine there. But she will have access to a variety of drugs provided by the corrections officers for a price.
Her fiancé will have to brace himself that she may have a penchant for 🐈 in about 8 years.
She should have received at least 25 years for killing Gustern. Especially since she went out of her way to hide her tracks.
I doubt she will slim down, lots of carbs in those diets
She got the light sentence because she is connected. She will be out in a few years for good behavior.
She is more than a cash cow now. She has gotten very fat at Rikers. Those butch girls in prison are going to have a lot of meat to grab with that one. They like fat rich girls, she should have a good ride.
She’s been in prison and that’s where she packed on an additional 50 lbs. Lardass Lauren will have to be rolled out of the prison when her sentence is complete.
Don Rickles used to make joke about women wearing fashions by “Omar The Tentmaker.” Compare to the NY Post photo: is that or is that not olive drab canvas?
… and then proceeded to casually murder a senior citizen, as one does.
Manslaughter would be if she bumped into the victim coming out of a stall in the ladies room. Instead Pazienza shoved the victim which to me means intent and therefore murder.
The City owed her absolutely nothing, had a great case, and giving her a break on the plea is disgusting.
This cesspool chick is pure sh*t, but shoving someone is not intent to kill, unless it’s onto subway tracks or into traffic or something. This was more a matter of bizarre circumstances than intent.
Who gives a shit about her “intent”
She murdered the innocent woman
She should spend the rest of her life in prison
If you want to charge her with more than manslaughter, intent is pretty much all that matters.
Completely bereft of morals, humanity and conscience.
Yeah. Killing an elderly woman. Walking around the Captial building to protest a stolen election. Kinda the same thing. Definitely deserve the same punishment. LOL
Nasty.
If she was out drinking with her soon-to-be cesspool draining heir why was she walking around alone all messed up?
Their advertising slogan is: Ad Aurem par feces.
Over-lenient plea bargaining needs to end
The vile Dumb-o-crats are actively enabling criminal sociopaths’ predations upon American citizens, given the collective effect of their undermining of/vilification of law enforcement officers, their non-prosecutions/lax prosecutions of criminal defendants and their indefensible and morally offensive leniency in sentencing — the latter two behaviors pertaining especially to criminals “of color.”
The GOP nominee for President should run ads on the Dumb-o-crats’ coddling of and enabling of criminals, 24/7.
Also, in some states (apparently, New York isn’t one of them), an assault or other violent felony committed against an elderly person over age 65 results in enhanced penalties for the perp.
The unspoken but clear message being sent in this case is that it’s acceptable to assault elderly people. That’s what’s conveyed by the absurd leniency of the sentence.
All that I’m seeing across the board throughout the U.S. (with the exception of Florida, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Texas) is uniform leniency in sentencing for convicts who’ve committed horrible and violent felonies. It’s another part of the vile Dumb-o-crats’ pervasive moral and cultural rot visited upon our society.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lonesome_Death_of_Hattie_Carroll
And, with regard to the wretched Dumb-o-crats who will predictably claim that the perp would’ve received a stiffer sentence had she been “of color,” we can point to the black thugs in Ohio who beat a teen to death (having been charged only with assault), and, the “Black Lives Matter” arsonist who burned down a business and killed a man (receiving a laughably lenient ten-year sentence).
I think she would if anything have received a lighter sentence if she had been black. But heaven help her if the woman who died had been black. Then hate-crime would have been assumed either explicitly or implicitly, the race industry would have gotten involved, she might go for 30 years.
Very true.
Another thought. Courts are seeming to be hands-off on same-race crimes, preferring to do the racial stuff. Most of same-race crimes are black on black. Blacks commit more crimes per person and mostly against other blacks among whom they live, and cops (for obvious reasons after Chauvin) and courts often steer clear. Well this is a white on white crime so maybe courts just figure they’re for ruling on racial issues and leave our internal fights aside.
It seems all we hear about is racial stuff these days.
“Pazienza, who is the heiress to a large cesspool draining empire in Long Island”
If this pitch were any fatter, it’d be a basketball.
“she is a child of privilege who was given everything she ever wanted by her parents.”
At the Golden Corral’s dessert bar.
and we should believe this classmate, why? Why is this even in the story?
The classmate dropped a video with the daily mail that shows Lauren mocking deaf people. She’s a piece of shit.
Presumably that could not be admitted into evidence. It should have been shown to the judge before he approved the plea deal, as it’s the sort of thing that would be relevant in a sentencing hearing. But did this classmate even know a deal was cooking?
She took a plea deal. Courts have done much worse plea deals, we hear about them all the time. First offense, fit of rage, not premeditated, temporary insanity, she didn’t mean to kill, she could hire expensive lawyers. The trial wasn’t a slam-dunk for a conviction.
Given the realities of the system, I don’t see the problem here. 8.5 years is pretty hard time and she’ll be dried out and a bit older then, unlikely to repeat the performance.
If you’re comfortable with 8.5 years for killing another person in a ‘one off’ scenario then most homicides are way over punished. I believe the majority of killings are still between people who know each other. They are based on the dynamic of the particular relationship thus they are not likely to kill another person.
The number of strangers killing someone is rising and scary as hell to me. These sorts of killings should be max punished. Drunk? Tough. High? Tough. Anger management issues? Tough. Control your prior actions ie don’t over indulge and wither stay home or with someone who will help calm you down. Eff this lack of personal responsibility and avoidance of consequences due to sob story crap.
I totally agree, Chief. When it comes to punishing violent felonies, I am Old Testament harsh. There is no excuse for visiting violence upon an innocent person, and, certainly not an elderly person. A twenty to twenty-five year sentence would have been appropriate, year, given the seriousness of the crime and the age/frailty of the victim.
Except in self defense. Being elderly or any other category for that matter shouldn’t make someone off limits from the consequences of their actions. Get up in someone’s face yelling and screaming, maybe even touching or grabbing and if the person receiving this decides to curb stomp you I don’t have a huge problem with it as long as it is one on one and it’s just an ass kicking.
I don’t see “comfort” as one of the possible emotions regarding this situation, no matter how it’s punished. At any rate, comforting me would be a wrong reason to add more years. I stand by what I said.
Also when you speak of “most homicides” are you including those that go to a plea deal? Or are you saying no plea deal should have been offered?
I don’t know the legal standards, but temporary insanity comes to mind here. The trial was not a slam-dunk.
You’re omitting mention about the elderly age of the victim. In most jurisdictions, violent crimes committed against elderly victims are aggressively prosecuted and punished — irrespective of the culprit’s status as a “first-time” offender.
And, under a decade served for what amounts to involuntary manslaughter and aggravated assault (the aggravating factor being the age of the victim) is an indefensibly lenient sentence, by any reasonable measure, in any jurisdiction.
OK but being 65+ myself, I find it hard to approve of that enhancement. Why would you punish worse for removing the smaller remaining portion of someone’s life, than cutting it off at the early stages with the whole life ahead?
Maybe there’s a reason but I don’t understand it. Would people frequently kill us oldsters otherwise?
To Artichoke,
She received an 8.5 year sentence.
She will serve anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 of that time.
So she will be out in four years at the max.
So should state sentences be 3x federal sentences to “discount” that tendency in state prison? Maybe so, but typically they aren’t as far as I know.
The state just did her “fiance” a BIG favor, even if it means he has to go find a job.
She’s a ~99% set-up for drinking and drugging during pregnancy.
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome happens. Mild, moderate, severe, etc.
Sad.
Because who would want their kid to become Mayor of Chicago?
She was the mentor of a friend of mine. Everyone who knew her was devastated.
Just curious what the punishment would be if every circumstance were identical, except the killer was male?
It would probably be more, but it shouldn’t be. And if the victim were black, it would probably be more, but it shouldn’t be.
They seem to be inviting vigilante justice at this point. When government tells families that the deaths of their loved ones only merits 8-years in prison, what the government is really telling those people is that they and the people they loved just don’t matter.
When you eventually tell enough people they don’t matter, bad things happen.
What you are describing is exactly how the criminal justice system now operates in American cities today? The courts, the police, all involved … simply leave it to those involved to settle their own scores.
8 years is a lot. Even 2 or 3 if she’s a “model prisoner” and sweet talks the parole board is a fair amount. It doesn’t mean the other person’s life doesn’t matter, but no punishment will bring back the dead. This is not a civil case where someone can be made whole by the other.