A career criminal who police say was shown on surveillance video stalking Christina Yuna Lee on the night of her stabbing death has been c...
A career criminal who police say was shown on surveillance video stalking Christina Yuna Lee on the night of her stabbing death has been charged with murdering the 35-year-old New York advertising executive in her apartment in New York’s Chinatown.
Assamad Nash, 25, was charged in the early Sunday morning murder, the New York Post reported Monday.
Nash, who is homeless, has been arrested four times in the past year on charges that included assault, intentional damage to property, harassment, resisting arrest, attempted and successful escape from police officers and selling a fare card, the Daily Mail reported.
WABC-TV reported that he had been arrested at least seven times since 2015.
Brian Chin, the landlord for the building where Lee lived, said Nash should never have been prowling the streets and criticized new Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who has been rebuked for his soft-on-crime policies since taking over.
“This all could have been avoided. This guy should never have been out of the street. And it’s DA Alvin Bragg playing politics with people’s lives and the Asian community has been hurt. To have a DA who has won those horrific crimes right on his doorstep. And he doesn’t even bother to show up. It’s disgraceful,” Chin told reporters, according to the Daily Mail.
“From a landlord’s perspective, from storeowner’s perspective, we’re terrified of this, his policies and whatnot,” he said, according to the New York Daily News. “This guy, his rap sheet is a mile long, he should have been behind bars. Assault? Menacing? How is he out? This is outrageous.”
“We’ve been staunch members of this community and supporters of this community since we built it. And to see the destruction wrecked over one mayor’s term and one DA’s term, it’s not just shocking and appalling, it’s outrageous just from a personal level as well,” Chin said.
He said the crime was a tragedy.
“He followed her up all six flights. And she never even knew that he was there,” Chin said. “She walked up six flights of stairs and this man mercilessly stalked her. This was not a crime of mental illness or anything. He stayed one floor below and watched her go up those stairs. And then he moved methodically one flight up at a time. He was absolutely in full control.”
The landlord said bail reform laws that allow criminals to roam free need to be overhauled.
“This is just so horrific on so many levels,” Chin said. “She did not do anything wrong. She did not deserve this. If this guy got away, I can’t even imagine what would happen.”
Police responded to a report of a woman screaming shortly before 4:30 Sunday morning and found Lee in her bathtub bleeding from multiple wounds. Nash was arrested after he was found under a bed in Lee’s apartment, according to the Post.
Chin said Nash timed everything perfectly.
“We have such tight security in this building we have steel doors. It took a SWAT team over 10 minutes to gain access. These doors are designed to keep monsters out,” he said.
“She got out of a cab right here and he followed her. He grabbed the front door just before it closed. He followed her all the way up, hanging back, staying one floor behind her all the way up to the sixth floor. Then, he waited until her door was just about closed and he went in.”
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