According to his lawyer’s argument on Friday, the personal assistant of tech CEO Fahim Saleh, Tyrese Haspil, allegedly beheaded his boss in New York in July 2020 in a ‘crime of passion’.
His defense claims that Haspil was desperate to hide hundreds of thousands of dollars he had stolen from Saleh and was scared that Marine Chaveuz, his girlfriend from France would break up with him if she found out. This apparent desperation led him to break into Saleh’s $2.4 million Lower East Side apartment and taser him before stabbing him to death New York Post says.
Haspil’s attorney Sam Roberts is seeking to convince the twelve-member jury that Haspil suffered from “extreme emotional disturbances” that caused the killing. On the other hand, prosecutors claim that Haspil thought there were two options: committing murder or suicide since he was afraid he would lose Chaveuz forever once she discovered that he had stolen $400000 from her.
Fahim Saleh who is also a venture capitalist realized in January 2020 that $90000 had disappeared from a company spending account. He questioned Tyrese Haspil his assistant about it but finally it turned out to be directly connected to Haspil.
Saleh did not take any legal action against Haspil despite the gravity of the matter because he regarded him as a protégé instead; therefore, rather than get arrested by authorities for what he did Hadid let him pay back what he stole over time using an installment plan But again this time using a Paypal account, Haspil embezzled funds belonging Saleh’s company only to be trapped again this time around.
The possibility of being charged pushed Harding to research very carefully and arrange exactly how they will execute an assassination without leaving behind any clues For instance Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Linda Ford stated crime of passion, “Over this period of time, he was planning not only to commit the homicide but to get away with it …To cover it up and how to erase his debt and prevent Fahim Saleh from testifying in criminal proceedings.”
Prosecutors say that Haspil wore a mask while tasing Saleh, then stabbing him and finally a day later dismembering the body.
Although he tried cleaning up after the crime scene, none of the “anti-felon disk” tags were removed by Haspil. These tags which had been ordered by Haspil a month prior to the murder were discovered and matched to his Brooklyn residence.
The cousin found her nephew’s torso exposed in the living room alongside construction bags when she went to check on him after some days without hearing from him. Even though he was supposedly devoted to Chaveuz, two days following that murder in Noho, Haspil was seen buying birthday balloons with a mystery woman using what is claimed as his dead boss’ money at an Airbnb birthday party for his new girlfriend.
Haspil has pleaded innocence on first-degree murder charges which if found guilty attracts a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years-life imprisonment. Crime of passion attorneys seek instead that jurors convict him of manslaughter on account of being “emotionally disturbed,” punishable by between five and 25 years only.
In that case, according to Roberts, Haspil’s life has experienced a sequence of traumatic events since his childhood was spent under his crazy mother’s hands. According to Roberts, although Haspil “might seem irrational to us,” he probably thought that what he did at the time “made some kind of sense.”
