Fake Fireman Who Raped New York Woman in Sadistic Attack Has Chance At Freedom

NEW YORK CITY, NY - A man who dressed up as a firefighter to rape a magazine co-worker back in 2005 on Halloween night, is reportedly up for a parole hearing.

Former fashion magazine writer Peter Braunstein will have his first hearing before the state Parole Board during the week of August 18th, according to the New York Post.

An official with the Department of Corrections said that an exact date has not yet been set.

Braunstein, who is now 61 years old, sexually brutalized a co-worker he'd grown obsessed with.

On Halloween night in 2005, Braunstein set fire to the victim's Chelsea apartment and posed as a firefighter to get into her home.

Once inside, he chloroformed the 36-year-old woman, drugged her, stripped her naked, bound her, and sexually assaulted her for over 13 hours.

On her mirror, he wrote, "Bye — Hope things turn around for U soon." He also videotaped the sexual assault. At the time of the horrific incident, Braunstein was on probation for menacing his ex-girlfriend, the late fashion editor Jane Larkworthy. 

He went on the run after the incident and became the most wanted man in America at the time.

The New York Police Department (NYPD) launched a nationwide manhunt, with daily headlines tracking the suspect's movements from upstate New York to Ohio.

Two months later, on December 16, 2005, he was spotted strolling across the University of Memphis campus. "I'm the guy you're looking for," he allegedly shouted as university cops closed in on him.

He then stabbed himself in the neck more than a dozen times with a three-inch blade.

"[He] stated that he cannot believe that he missed [killing himself] because he did research and studied the carotid artery," police revealed in a statement following his arrest. Weeks before his monthlong trial began, Braunstein tried to hang himself while being locked up at Rikers Island. 

His lawyers contended that he suffered from depression and claimed that he attempted to take his own life in late 2004 by carving into his own chest with a knife. However, he told police that Larkworthy had attacked him. 

Braunstein was convicted of kidnapping, sexual abuse, robbery, and burglary on May 23, 2007. He was sentenced to 18 years to life in prison.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Thomas Farber scolded Braunstein for displaying "true apathy for the victims in this case."

Six months after being sentenced, The Post conducted an interview with Braunstein while he was at Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate. "It's a good thing that I'm locked up because I've been having violent fantasies. I don't know what I'm capable of," he confessed at the time.

He was unrepentant and even allegedly called his ex, Larkworthy, "evil incarnate."

In 2013, Braunstein was in the news again after correction officers swiped his copy of kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard's 2011 autobiography, "A Stolen Life." Administrators for the department had banned the book because Dugard described being sexually assaulted in it.

Braunstein was also barred in 2013 from reading "Dark Demons," a 2001 book by profiler Roy Hazelwood that explores the minds of sexual predators.

In 2014, he sued prison officials for denying him access to "Cellar of Horror: The Story of Gary Heidnik," a serial murderer and rapist. He was also barred access to alt-porn website Burning Angel.

Today, Braunstein is being held at the Wende Correctional Facility, which is a maximum security prison located in Alden, New York.

Victim rights advocates said that Braunstein should stay locked up for good. "This rapist's crimes were exceptionally vicious," said Jane Manning, director of the group Women's Equal Justice and a former sex crimes prosecutor with the Queens District Attorney's Office.

"He vowed to re-offend if given a chance. He should never be released."
 
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Comments

Dawn

Here's hoping the parole board shows sense and does NOT release this predator. If they release him and he hurts someone else, that blood will be on their hands as much as his.

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