The East Village man charged with fatally slashing a fellow graffiti artist had challenged his victim to settle their dispute over a woman "like men," prosecutors said Tuesday.
The claim came as Jairo Pastoressa, 25, was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court and held without bail for the stabbing death of Christopher Jusko Monday.
Prosecutors said he was clutching an 8 1/2-inch knife as he stood on the second-floor landing of his E. 7th St. apartment as Jusko — and the woman they were fighting over — arrived at about 5:15 a.m. early Monday.
........
[Pastoressa's] lawyer, who said cops are still looking to question the girlfriend, asked that his client be put on suicide watch.
A man charged with fatally stabbing a love rival had lured his victim to his East Village apartment with a false promise they’d "settle it like men," prosecutors said today.
Instead, Jairo Pastoressa, 25, "sliced the victim in the neck, and as the victim turned away, stabbed him in the back" in the apartment on East 7th Street near Avenue D, Assistant District Attorney Caitlin Nolan told a Manhattan Criminal Court judge in successfully asking that Pastoressa be held without bail.
The victim, Christopher Jusko, was unarmed and "made no physical actions against the defendant," Nolan said.
But Pastoressa’s lawyer, Spiro Ferris, insisted that his client may have been acting in self-defense during the argument.
HippieChick said...
I heard the initial big boom, then nothing until I started smelling the horrible smoke. FDNY made a silent approach, for never a siren did I hear.
Then the lights started flickering on 9th Street. Badly flickering. I turned my computer off at once, and everything else too, and went down to see what the hell. FDNY just standing around and told me Con Ed wasn't expected for 20 minutes, as there continued to be small explosions and lots of smoke.
Eventually Con Ed showed up; there's still trucks on the block at this, but the lights have been steady since about 2 pm.
It's always something.
Didja hear about the explosion at the northwest corner of 1st avenue and 9th street?
Supposedly an electrical fire underground. Con Ed hasn't shown up and the fire crews are watching the smoke billowing out. It sounded like someone dropped a fridge off a second floor, around 12:15.
The city's murder rate has shot up nearly 15% this year, and residents in the worst-hit precincts are worried New York is headed back to darker days.
The NYPD recorded 437 murders as of Sunday, compared with 382 in the same period last year.
Robberies jumped 29 percent between Oct. 11 and Oct. 17 compared to the same week last year, and overall are up 4.7 percent this year, according to police statistics.
At the meeting today, Chief of Department Joseph Esposito, the highest ranking uniformed officer, and Chief of Operations Patrick Timlin are expected to grill the heads of the NYPD's eight borough commands, detective borough chiefs and housing and transit borough chiefs, the sources said.
Mr. Juska, who had no known address, was able to flee but collapsed in front of the building where he was later pronounced dead by emergency medical technicians, police said.
The official said Mr. Pastoressa later turned himself into the Ninth Precinct. He told police he only stabbed the victim after Mr. Juska brandished a gun, the official said, but no gun was found at the scene. Mr. Pastoressa has been featured in online videos where he crafts graffiti murals.
Neighbors described Pastoressa as a passive, good-natured person and expressed shock when hearing about the brutal incident.
"For Jairo to do something like this is crazy," said third-floor resident John Bonilla, 59, who saw a bloody trail on the staircase from the second floor down to the hallway of the first floor. "He was laid back."
Ramos and others echoed Bonilla's statements that Pastoressa was not a troublemaker.
"He was a good guy," Ramos said.
Another neighbor said Pastoressa was "well liked" and a "social butterfly," but that he had been picked on in the past and had his apartment broken into last year.
"This ain't [like] him," said Damien J., 27, who lives next door to Pastoressa's apartment. "He ain't no fighter."
Pastoressa grew up in the apartment building and knew many of people in the neighborhood, said Lyn Pentecost, executive director of the Lower Eastside Girls Club, whose son went to daycare with Pastoressa.
"He's not the kind of guy to be violent if unprovoked," she added.
Pastoressa apparently worked on street art with Antonio "Chico" Garcia, a well-known neighborhood graffiti artist whose murals cover dozens of walls and storefronts across the East Village.
it was not an 'alert super.' in fact our super didn't show up for hours despite numerous police calls. it was in fact a random passerby with a shopping cart who buzzed each unit 3-4 times, woke us all up, and alerted us that 'your building is on fire. get out of the building now!' when thanking him later his response was 'any new yorker would have done the same.' not sure i agree. I am still trying to find out who he is. I believe in credit where it's due.
Notification issued 10/24/10 at 3:00 PM. There will be an evacuation drill at the Con Edison East River Steam Plant late tomorrow morning, October 25, 2010. A siren will sound and plant employees will assemble on Avenue C between East 14th and East 16th Streets. This is only a drill.
Unlike Freemans, the new restaurant is located on a tricked-up stretch of the Bowery, which is fast becoming lower Manhattan’s answer to the Champs-Élysées.
An unidentified man was found dead with a stab wound to his neck in front of an East Village apartment building early Monday morning, police said.
The body of the 21-year-old man was discovered by police outside of 272 E. Seventh Street.
East Village neighbor Charles Smith, 41, was out getting his morning coffee around 5:30 a.m. when he saw the man stumbling out of the building.
"I thought he was drunk until I saw the blood," said Smith. "It's shocking to see someone die."
Smith said police arrived on the scene just minutes after the man collapsed onto the sidewalk.
Police arrested another man in connection with the crime, but they have not released his name. Officials have closed Seventh Street between avenues C and D while they investigate.
"We are still waiting on final reports from the Fire marshalls. Thankfully no one was hurt and the damage is confined to the backroom. We hope to have the front open in a few days. Definitely for the weekend. The backroom is another story. That will take much more time."
