2024-05-25 10:05:16
The personal assistant of a tech entrepreneur, who was charged in 2020 of dismembering his boss, has now claimed he beheaded the victim in a “crime of passion”, according to his lawyer.
The beheaded and armless body of 33-year-old Fahim Saleh was discovered by a cousin of his after he went to his luxury Manhattan condo to check on the tech entrepreneur. Tyrese Haspil, who handled Saleh’s finances and personal matters, was arrested with an initial investigation stating he owed his boss a “significant amount of money”.
Now, it has come to light that Haspil was stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from Saleh and didn’t want his French girlfriend, Marine Chaveuz, to find out the stealing and break up with him, his defence team has argued, The New York Post reported.
To ensure secrecy, the 25-year-old assistant had forced his way into Saleh’s $2.4 million Lower East Side flat. Then, he tasered him before stabbing him to death, Haspil’s defence lawyer Sam Roberts told jurors at the Manhattan Supreme Court on Friday (May 24).
Sam Roberts is trying to convince the 12-member jury that his client suffered from “extreme emotional disturbance” that led him to murder Saleh.
Haspil had stolen nearly $400,000 from Saleh, and to stop his girlfriend from finding that out, he settled on two options – “suicide or homicide”, and chose the latter, according to prosecutors.
Saleh, whose parents are native of Bangladesh, confronted Haspil about the missing money in January 2020 after learning $90,000 disappeared from a corporate spending account. Later, it was traced back to Haspil. Saleh, however, decided against pressing charges and allowed the 25-year-old to pay him back via a “payment plan”, The New York Post reported.
But, Haspil continued to steal from Saleh’s company through a Paypal account.
When he was caught again, Haspil got scared of prosecution and began carefully researching and planning how to get away with murder, prosecutors told the jurors.
HOW THE BRUTAL KILLING TOOK PLACE
Giving blow-by-blow details of the murder, prosecutors said that Haspil, wearing a mask, tasered Saleh. Then, stabbed him to death before chopping up his body a day later, including the victim’s head.
Later, Haspil vacuumed, but the cleaning process was not sufficient, and he didn’t suck up a single “anti-felon disk” identification tag, which was recovered at the crime scene. It consisted of a unique number that matched the taser Haspil ordered to his Brooklyn address a month before the killing, The New York Post reported, citing the prosecutors.
Saleh’s cousin found his torso exposed in the living room of his condo alongside construction bags when she went to check on him, after she hadn’t heard from him for days.
Interestingly, despite hatching the plan reportedly to not get dumped by his girlfriend Marine Chaveuz, Haspil was spotted with a mystery woman two days after the murder, The New York Post reported.
Tyrese Haspil has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges, which come with a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years to life in jail if convicted.
His lawyer, Sam Roberts, said Haspil’s life has been “marked by trauma” starting with a tough childhood where he was an abuse victim for years by his schizophrenic mother.
(With inputs from The Associated Press)
