A Manhattan jury is about to resolve the destiny of Tyrese Haspil, the 25-year-old former private assistant on trial for the brutal homicide of his boss, tech CEO Fahim Saleh.
An lawyer for Haspil, who has been standing trial in New York Supreme Legal Court docket, argued that he was so in love along with his girlfriend and terrified that she would depart him, he grew to become extraordinarily emotionally disturbed, main him to kill Saleh.
However prosecutors mentioned Haspil was energetic on Bumble, a well-liked courting app, whereas he was courting his girlfriend — making an attempt to undermine claims that he was mad along with his love for her on the time of the killing.
Throughout closing arguments at the beginning of the day, public defender Sam Roberts argued Haspil deserved the jury’s “deliberate, complete consideration of why” he slayed his former boss, whose household sat stoically within the pews of the courtroom gallery.
“Why did Tyrese do that horrible, irrevocable factor? Why? That is the one main query,” Roberts informed the jury, arguing that his shopper was affected by excessive emotional disturbance, or EED.
If the jury buys it, Haspil could be responsible of manslaughter as an alternative of homicide, considerably lowering his jail sentence.
Saleh was the CEO of Gokada, a ride-hailing and supply service Gokada primarily based in Nigeria.
Saleh’s cousin discovered him beheaded and dismembered in his $2.4 million Decrease Manhattan condominium on July 14, 2020.
Haspil, his former private assistant, admitted after his arrest to stabbing Saleh to loss of life to cover a $400,000 embezzlement, and then sawing him into six items to cover his corpse.
Roberts tried to persuade the jury that, for Haspil, the considered probably being deserted by his girlfriend was “worse than the considered killing this harmless individual.” Haspil was so compelled by “his first actual relationship” with Marine Chauveau, who was about to return to France upon her visa’s expiration, that he needed to embezzle his boss’s cash to bathe her with items for her birthday.
“Nevertheless warped it might appear to us,” Roberts mentioned, “for Tyrese, Marine was his entire world.”
Haspil had spent years embezzling from Saleh, who was giving him an opportunity to pay the cash again with out getting the police concerned. These thefts spiked when he received into the connection, Roberts informed the jury, referencing a graph of the embezzlements over time.
In his extraordinarily emotionally disturbed state, Haspil believed murder was his solely path ahead as a result of “it will present somewhat extra time” along with his girlfriend earlier than he would inevitably go to jail for embezzlement, Roberts mentioned.
When it was the federal government’s flip to make closing arguments, prosecutor Linda Ford popped the love bubble.
Not solely did Haspil plan the homicide months upfront, Ford argued, however he was additionally on Bumble whereas he was supposedly obsessively in love along with his girlfriend.
“That is about his life-style,” Ford mentioned, underscoring how Haspil lived in a penthouse and traveled by helicopter earlier than he even met Chauveau. “This isn’t a couple of birthday celebration. That is about murdering Fahim Saleh.”
After closing arguments, Decide April Newbauer informed the jury they’d start deliberations Monday morning.
