Alan Chin/Insider
- The assistant accused of killing and beheading the tech CEO Fahim Saleh is planning a psych defense.
- Tyrese Haspil hopes to convince a Manhattan jury he suffered from "extreme emotional disturbance."
- A trial date is not yet set for Haspil, whom prosecutors say planned the grisly killing for weeks.
The personal assistant charged in the home-invasion killing and dismemberment of his tech-CEO boss is set to argue at trial that he was "emotionally disturbed" in the weeks surrounding the grisly slaying, it was revealed in court Thursday.
News that Tyrese Haspil, 25, was considering what's called an "extreme emotional disturbance" defense in the 2020 killing of Fahim Saleh was first reported by Business Insider in August.
If Haspil could convince a jury he was emotionally disturbed — a tall order given a trove of video and forensic evidence pointing toward weeks of premeditation — he'd face far less prison time.
His first-degree-murder charges carry a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years to life, meaning it would be 20 years before he even saw a parole board.
A successful defense of extreme emotional disturbance would reduce the top charge to first-degree manslaughter, which carries a sentence of anywhere from five to 25 years.
REUTERS/Temilade Adelaja
A trial date has not yet been set. But in a hearing Thursday, the lead Manhattan prosecutor, Linda Ford, offered a progress report, saying experts from her office had completed two psychological examinations of Haspil in preparation for fighting his emotional-disturbance defense.
Ford told Supreme Court Justice April Newbauer of Manhattan that the district attorney's experts might need a third session with Haspil before a trial date can be set.
"Mr. Haspil may not testify," his Legal Aid Society lawyer, Sam Roberts, said after court. "But there will be expert testimony as we present a psychological defense of extreme emotional disturbance."
Manhattan prosecutors allege that Haspil intentionally killed Saleh 3 ½ years ago by forcing his way into his former boss' $2.4 million apartment in lower Manhattan, then stunning him with a Taser and stabbing him to death.
Saleh was an entrepreneur and computer programmer who founded Gokada, a ride-hailing app based in Nigeria.
His cousin discovered his body in pieces on the floor of his kitchen one day after the slaying.
Haspil had been dismembering his ex-boss with a power saw at the time, police and prosecutors say, but briefly left the crime scene to buy a charger when the tool's battery died.
Officials allege Haspil had embezzled $400,000 and hoped to cover up both the theft and the killing by disposing of the body and blaming Saleh's disappearance on shadowy overseas business associates.
Alan Chin/Insider
A BI investigation in August detailed key evidence against Haspil, including elevator security footage showing that Saleh's masked killer used a stun gun on him from behind, then returned to the elevator an hour later to vacuum.
Despite this effort, a single tiny identification tag from a Taser was recovered at the scene. The tag's unique number matched a Taser delivered to Haspil's Brooklyn address a month before the killing, prosecutors have said in court filings.
New York's extreme-emotional-disturbance defense is almost always used in cases where there appears to be a crime of passion.
But jurors may find that the delivery of the Taser proves Haspil planned the slaying for at least a month.
In that case, the defense would need to prove that Haspil's reasoning was disordered over the course of many weeks, culminating in a complex and calculated effort to cover up the killing.
"The alleged facts are horrific," Roberts said after court. "But we believe there is mitigation here."
Haspil remains held without bail and is due back in court on February 26.