BRAUNSTEIN CONVICTED!

CONVICTED CRIMINAL ANIMAL PETER BRAUNSTEIN

NYC FAKE FIREFIGHTER CONVICTED.
By SAMUEL MAULL
Associated Press Writer

EW YORK (AP) -- A former fashion writer was convicted Wednesday of sexually abusing a woman for almost 13 hours after posing as a firefighter on Halloween to bluff his way into her Manhattan apartment.

A jury needed less than four hours to convict Peter Braunstein in a case that provided a daily window into the bizarre world of a man whose life seemed to grow ever more unstable after he lost his girlfriend and his job in the magazine business.

Braunstein, 43, was convicted of kidnapping, burglary, sex abuse and robbery charges. He was acquitted of arson.

After the verdict, he maintained the same blank, lethargic look he had throughout the trial. He faces 25 years to life in prison at his June 18 sentencing.

Braunstein's lawyers did not dispute that he carried out the 2005 attack, but said he was so mentally ill that he was unable to form the intent to be held criminally responsible for the crimes.

His father, Alberto Braunstein, said outside court after the verdict that he hoped his son would not simply be thrown in prison with common criminals and receive no psychiatric treatment.

"He is a sick person," he said.

The trial provided much strange testimony about Braunstein.

In one of his many rambling journal entries, he described wandering Tennessee posing as a Katrina victim to get free meals and a place to crash. The jury also saw scans of Braunstein's brain, which the defense said "broke" to the point that he couldn't possibly be convicted.

On Halloween 2005, Braunstein set off smoke bombs outside the victim's apartment while dressed as a firefighter and brandishing a BB gun, prosecutors said. Once inside, he knocked the woman - a former co-worker - out with chloroform, tied her to a bed naked and molested her, they said.

The victim testified she recalled Braunstein stripping her naked, putting stiletto heels on her feet, groping her and videotaping the encounter.

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