A New York City event planner accused of shoving an 87-year-old Broadway vocal coach to her death who was on a ‘wine-fueled rampage ‘with her fiance’ spent her first night inside of the notorious women’s section of Rikers Island prison on May 10.
Prosecutors revealed the new details in Manhattan Supreme Court on Tuesday when Lauren Pazienza, 26, was ordered to be held without bail pending trial because she was considered a flight risk.
Pazienza turned herself in nearly two weeks after the March attack but was released on a $500,000 bail days later. She appeared in court on Tuesday for the first time since her release, where she pleaded not guilty to first-degree manslaughter and second-degree assault before the judge revoked her bail and remanded her
Pazienza was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs and booked at the Rose M. Singer Center on Rikers Island.
The Rose M. Singer Center, commonly referred to as ‘Rosies’ by inmates, was opened in June 1988 as an 800-bed facility for female detainees and sentenced women in custody. It includes a nursery for new mothers.
The center is named Rose Singer, a former member of the New York City Board of Correction. In March 2020, Singer’s granddaughter, Suzanne Singer, wrote on op-ed for The New York Times in which she wrote about ‘routine abuse,’ ‘unsanitary conditions’ and inmates being treated as ‘less than human’ at the center.
While just days before Pazienza found herself at the center, Brooklyn Democrat Councilwoman Jennifer Guiterrez spoke at a rally at New York’s City Hall where she called for the facility to be shut down.
According to the Women’s Community Justice Association, those housed in the center make up four percent of the entire Rikers’ population. The majority of those incarcerated in the women’s facility are black with property offenses being the most common crime among inmates.
In October 2021, 230 inmates from the center were moved to to the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility and the Taconic Correctional Facility, around 40 miles north of New York City, due to staffing and safety concerns
In April 2022, a transgender inmate with previous arrests for assault raped a female prisoner after she finished showering in the center.
Ramel Blount, 33, who goes by the name Diamond Blount, pleaded guilty to the sexual attack in a deal on April 7.
The 33-year-old victim, whose name was not released, had just finished showering when Blount approached her from behind, held her down by the back of her neck and raped her at the Rose M. Singer center on February 8, 2021.
Pazienza, Long Island native, was indicted in March on manslaughter and assault charges in the death of Barbara Gustern after allegedly pushing the woman while calling her a ‘b***h’ in the Chelsea area on March 10.
The elderly victim was rushed to the hospital where she died five days later.
Just prior to the attack on that Thursday night, Pazienza had been drinking wine at various art galleries with her fiancé as they celebrated exactly 100 days until their June 18 wedding, Assistant District Attorney Justin McNabney said.
Thursday nights are considered to be ‘opening nights’ for many galleries in the upscale neighborhood as well-heeled punters head out for free booze in the Chelsea area.
They went to several art galleries in Chelsea, where the defendant had several glasses of wine. Afterward, they went to a food cart, where they each got a meal. They went to Chelsea Park, one block away from the assault, where the defendant began to eat her meal,’ McNabney said in court, as reported by the New York Daily News.
While Pazienza was eating her meal in Chelsea Park, a park employee came up to her and told her that she would have to leave, because the park was closing soon, McNabney said.
‘The defendant became angry, started shouting and cursing at the park employee, threw her food onto her fiancé, and stormed out of the park.’
The fiancé told prosecutors he started walking toward the subway, planning to go to the Astoria apartment the couple shared.
Meanwhile, Pazienza was heading in the direction of West 28th Street near Eighth Avenue where she came across Gustern, a vocal coach who had just finished rehearsals in the area, and allegedly yelled at her and angrily shoved her to the sidewalk.
Lauren Pazienza, 26, was arraigned on charges of manslaughter and assault
Prosecutors say Pazienza then watched as an ambulance crew took the woman to the hospital where she died five days later.
Pazienza had called her fiancé, Naveen Pereira, just after the incident, prosecutors said in court, but ‘said nothing about the fact that she had just shoved an older woman to the cement.’
‘Instead, she started to argue with her fiancé, accusing him of ruining her night,’ the prosecutor told the court. ‘Right before they went to bed that night, the defendant finally, for the first time, turned to her fiancé and told him that she had pushed someone. She said that she thought the person had fallen, and she walked away.’
When Pazienza’s fiancé asked why she had pushed Gustern, she said the woman ‘might have said something’ to her but she wasn’t sure.
Pazienza fled the scene that day and was on the lam for 11 days before turning herself in following Gustern’s death. She was charged with manslaughter and assault.
‘It appears that [the shove] was for a random reason. The victim in this case was apparently left lying on the sidewalk. The defendant walked away. She faces significant prison time if convicted. Although that may not seem a reality at this time, as the case proceeds, I have serious concerns it may affect her desire to return to court.’
The attack unfolded around 8.30 p.m. on March 10, when Gustern was walking towards a cab outside her Chelsea apartment building when she was pushed from behind.
She was helped back to her feet by a cyclist and was taken to the hospital ‘covered in blood’ after hitting her head on the cement, and died from her injuries five days later.
Before she lost consciousness, Gustern told police and a friend that an unfamiliar woman crossed the street, approached her directly, called her a ‘b***h’ and shoved her ‘as hard as she had ever been hit in her life.’
McNabney said the dying woman’s account to witnesses would prove crucial in piecing together what occurred during the brief, deadly interaction.
Gustern died from her injuries five days later.
rosecutors say Pazienza stayed in the area for about 20 minutes after the attack, arguing with her fiancé on a nearby sidewalk before returning to the scene of the crime to watch as an ambulance arrived.
Soon after the attack, she went back home to Astoria, Queens, quit her job at a store in Chelsea, deleted all social media and took down a website advertising her wedding this June, prosecutors say.
The day after Gustern died, Pazienza allegedly fled for her parents’ home on Long Island and later stashed her phone at her aunt’s house so police wouldn’t find it.
Pazienza’s attorney told DailyMail.com that there is no proof that she pushed Gustern.
‘What they have is a photo of someone who looks like my client getting on the subway. This attack did not happen on the subway,’ said lawyer Arthur Aidala, a high-powered defense attorney who has previously represented Rudolph Giuliani, Harvey Weinstein, and Roger Ailes.
According to the criminal complaint, Pazienza ‘made every effort to avoid detection.’
When police were tipped off that she was hiding out in her parents’ Long Island home, ‘Her father [Daniel] answered the door, but refused to allow detectives to enter the premises, and claimed that his daughter was not at home.
‘It was only at that point, despite all of the media attention that this incident has received, despite the fact that the defendant knew what she had done when she fled the city, despite the pleas from the victim’s loved ones begging for the perpetrator to come forward, that the defendant’s counsel contacted the police and arranged for her to surrender.’
It is not unprecedented for parents to face consequences for allegedly trying to hide their fugitive children.
Though Pazienza she appears to have lived a life of privilege, and later glamour in New York City’s high society, neighbors told the New York Post that she was sharp-tempered and confrontational, and an elementary classmate has claimed she bullied fellow students.
Pazienza grew up in historic Setauket, Long Island, where she attended Ward Melville High School with her future fiancé, Microsoft customer support specialist Naveen Pereira.
A former classmate of Pazienza’s told Fox News that when he moved in down the street from her in second grade, she began bullying him.
The classmate said that Pazienza always had a ‘crazy look in her eyes’ and would kick him and call him and other kids names.
Her father Daniel owns a prosperous third-generation cesspool draining company, and claims on the company website that it was voted No. 1 in both price and service in Suffolk County for several years running.
In addition to pumping services, the company provides cesspool installations, grease trap installations, septic tank installations, storm drains and catch basin installations.
‘At Dan Pazienza Cesspool Service we pride ourselves on being Suffolk County’s most advanced cesspool service. We have been serving Suffolk County for over 3 generations,’ the website boasts.
Paziensa’s parents Daniel and Caroline, who have been married for 28 years, enjoyed a life of prosperity, taking vacations to Aruba, France, and the Florida Keys over the years, photos on Facebook show.
The family later moved to Port Jefferson, where Paziena allegedly fled to hide in her parents’ home after Gustern’s death.
After graduating high school in 2013, Paziena earned a bachelors degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology.
Photos show her enjoying glamorous parties in Manhattan in recent years, including the 40th-anniversary party for New York society magazine Avenue in 2015.