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Oct 6, 2006 1:56 pm US/Eastern
Fake NYC Firefighter In Trouble With The Law Again
NEW YORK (AP) ―
Peter Braunstein, the writer accused of pretending to be a firefighter and sexually abusing a woman in New York on Halloween night, pleaded guilty Friday to violating probation related to his harassing a former girlfriend.
Braunstein, 42, pleaded guilty in exchange for a one-year sentence, admitting he had violated his probation last year by leaving the city and going to Memphis, Tenn., without court or Probation Department permission.
Braunstein was on three years probation after pleading guilty July 13, 2005, to second-degree menacing involving an ex-girlfriend. He stalked and harassed her by posting nude pictures of her on an Internet site where viewers were invited to call her, and by calling her at work more than 200 times, prosecutors said.
Braunstein fled the city after his 13-hour, Halloween night sex attack on a former colleague in her Chelsea apartment, prosecutors alleged. He was arrested Dec. 16, 2005, on the University of Memphis campus after being on the run for six weeks.
Judge Tanya Kennedy sentenced Braunstein to the year in jail on the recommendation of prosecutor's lawyers. Braunstein's lawyer, Robert Gottlieb, said that as a practical matter the sentence amounted to time served.
Braunstein has pleaded not guilty to arson, kidnapping, burglary, robbery, sexual abuse and assault charges in the alleged Halloween attack on the 34-year-old woman in the apartment in Chelsea.
Braunstein, who shaved his Fu Manchu-style mustache and appears to have grown beefy and a little paunchy in jail, stood quietly Friday in a gray sweat suit and blue sneakers, his hands cuffed behind his back during his plea.
(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
