FIRE FAKE GETS SCORCHED: GUILTY OF EVIL MASQUERADE AS 25-YEAR TERM LOOMS

NY POST ^ | 5/24/2007 | LAURA ITALIANO; JENNIFER FERMINO

[wideawake]

May 24, 2007 -- Peter Braunstein - the demented, hate-filled fashion writer who costumed himself as a firefighter to kidnap, strip and sexually torture a beautiful ex-colleague - was convicted yesterday of the terrifying Halloween 2005 attack.

The lightning-fast verdict - after just under four hours of deliberations - capped a dramatic, four-week Manhattan trial that featured a gossip column's worth of celebrity names from fashion and entertainment, two worlds that fascinated the mad molester.

[wideawake]

It's very good news that a NYC jury convicted this slime so quickly on all counts.

But I am particularly glad because the father of the scumbag, Alberto Braunstein, was all over the news for days defending his disgusting son with the usual: "It's just an illness, my son is ill - he's not a criminal" and saying: "When the jury has the evidence they will acquit. All the horrible things they have been saying about my son, it's not fair, he will be vindicated."

Imagine how the victim feels to have this idiot saying that convicting his son "isn't fair."

Peter Braunstein planned the assault on this woman for months as a specific act of revenge against his employer (the victim worked for his firm and for the executive he blamed for his dismissal) and his ex-girlfriend (the victim looked like his ex-girlfriend).

He spent weeks buying authentic firefighter gear on eBay and elsewhere to look convincing to any city personnel who might see him.

He planned the attack for Hallowe'en so that he could blend into the downtown parade crowds in his "fireman costume."

He experimented with different small blazes so he could stage the perfectly convincing hallway fire that gained him entrance to his victim's apartment.

He brought a videocamera, drugs, restraints and pen and notebooks so he could tape himself assaulting the woman and torturing the woman, and so he could write down his during-assault thoughts for his journals.

He raped and tortured her for 12 straight hours, waiting until late at night so he could exit and blend in with the party crowds.

He already had an escape plan figured out and was a thousand miles from the city by the time the police could fully interview the victim.

Then he taunted the cops with prepackaged and preplanned messages and clues while he was on the lam.

The guy is pure evil and his father is a wizened old scumbag of an enabler.

[Sans-Culotte]

The jury dropped the ball on the arson charge:

Ironically, the only charge the notorious "fire fiend" was acquitted of was arson. Jurors afterward explained that Braunstein only intended smoke, not actual fire damage, when he ignited his two homemade, paper-cup smoke bombs in his victim's stairwell.

So, if his little smoke bomb had started a major fire that caused many deaths, he was not guilty of arson because of his intentions? Sheesh.

[wideawake]

Good catch. One commentator was saying that the prosecution didn’t devote much time to that charge, focusing on the other items in the indictment.