Long Island event planner Lauren Pazienza pleaded guilty Wednesday to stabbing veteran Broadway singing coach Barbara Maier Gustern to death in an unprovoked assault last year.
Pazienza, 27, attacked the 87-year-old singing coach on a sidewalk in Chelsea last March and forcefully pushed her to the ground.
She is expected to serve eight years for the murder – significantly less time behind bars than the 25-year prison sentence she risked receiving at trial. She will be formally sentenced on September 29.
Pazienza, the heiress of a major Long Island cesspool pumping empire, has been held in Rikers Island for more than a year since the seemingly aimless attack.
Lauren Pazienza pleads guilty to manslaughter in Manhattan Supreme Court on Wednesday for pushing Barbara Maier Gustern to her death in an unprovoked assault
Broadway singing coach Barbara Maier Gustern died in a hospital five days after the random shoving attack in March 2022.
Gustern died five days after being admitted with severe head injuries after being pushed.
It was later revealed that Pazienza, who did not know her victim, had crossed the street and called the singing coach before pushing her.
Prior to the apparently random attack, Pazienza had drunk several glasses of wine with her fiancé as they celebrated the 100 days until their marriage. She may have also taken a Xanax.
“She had been on drugs, maybe two bottles of wine and a ton of marijuana,” attorney Arthur Aidala claimed outside a Manhattan courtroom in June.
She had been kicked out of Chelsea Park, which was about to close, when she crossed the street and attacked Gustern.
Pazienza, who has no criminal record, is represented by Arthur Aidala, who previously represented disgraced film executive Harvey Weinstein at his trial in Manhattan in 2020.
Pazienza’s high-profile lawyer Arthur Aidala (left) and her parents (right)
Pazienza, who has been held in Rikers since her report last year, will be sentenced on September 29
2022: Lauren Pazienza is indicted in the Manhattan Supreme Court for manslaughter over the death of Barbara Gustern. She was sent to prison because she was considered a flight risk
The police published these images of Pazienza and claimed that she was responsible for the attack. She turned herself in two days later
Gustern’s grandson AJ (left) said Pazienza is lucky to have been able to afford such a competent legal adviser
Pazienza sits next to her lawyer in tears on Wednesday. She has agreed to a plea deal that will put her behind bars for eight years
According to prosecutors, Pazienza’s fiancée previously revealed that she had drunk “several glasses of wine” before the attack while the couple celebrated their engagement.
When she was told the park was closing, she reportedly flew into a rage and attacked Gustern in the street, pushing the 87-year-old to the ground and calling her an “asshole.”
She then allegedly watched paramedics remove the frail elderly woman as blood seeped from her head.
Pazienza, prosecutors allege, then spent the next two weeks trying to cover her tracks. She’s quit her job, deleted her social media pages, and even stashed her cell phone at her aunt’s house on Long Island after fleeing her apartment in Astoria, where she lives with her fiancé who works at Microsoft.
After several weeks, she finally turned herself in to the NYPD after police released footage of her as a suspect in the attack.
Her former friends said it was “no surprise” that Pazienza was charged with the disturbing crime.
“What angered me the most was that her lawyer said she overcharged and was a good and moral person. She’s not,” someone said.
“I knew her very well at school and she was a real nuisance.”
“She had been on drugs, maybe two bottles of wine and a ton of marijuana,” attorney Arthur Aidala claimed outside a Manhattan courtroom in June.
Seen on a family vacation as a teenager, Pazienza appears to have led a life of privilege and later glamor in New York City high society before ending up behind bars
Pazienza is currently imprisoned on Rikers Island, but grew up in an affluent Long Island family and enjoyed the high society of Manhattan. She is seen above in photos from her teenage years
According to the former classmate, “She is the epitome of white privilege. She never had to deal with consequences in her life. She was made possible by her parents, who helped her out of everything, but she called them stupid and basic.’
An acquaintance also said she was prone to mocking people and spoke in a derogatory way: “about fat people and deaf people… whoever.”
Footage shared with DailyMail.com also showed the 27-year-old appearing to mock deaf people, contorting her face as she screeched and pretending to be someone with a disability.