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Psychologist Says Braunstein Disliked Firefighters

NEW YORK (CBS/AP) ― A fashion industry writer who sexually abused a co-worker while dressed as a firefighter told a psychologist after his arrest that besides his disdain for people in the field he covered he also disliked firefighters.

The psychologist, Dr. Barbara Kirwin, testified for the defense Tuesday that Peter Braunstein discussed his hostility to New York's Bravest in January 2006 after she had been hired to help prepare a psychiatric defense for his trial.

"He said firemen had been depicted as heroes" by the news media, Kirwin testified while being cross-examined by a prosecutor, "but so many of them had betrayed that trust and were in fact hypocrites."

Kirwin, who diagnosed Braunstein as paranoid schizophrenic, did not testify about any specific acts that he cited as examples of the firefighters' hypocrisy.

"I wanted to commit this horrific crime and suicide to stick it to the New York City firefighters," Kirwin quoted Braunstein as telling her in their meeting at Bellevue Hospital Center, where he was being held.

Prosecutors say Braunstein, after careful planning, ignited smoke bombs while wearing firefighter gear and bluffed his way into a former co-worker's apartment, where he knocked her our with chloroform, tied her to a bed and sexually abused her for nearly 13 hours on Oct. 31, 2005.

Braunstein has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping, burglary, sex abuse and robbery charges, although his lawyers concede he attacked the woman. They say their client, who would face 25 years to life in prison if convicted, is mentally ill and not criminally responsible for the attack.

Before being fired, Braunstein, 43, had been a reporter at Fairchild Publications, parent of Women's Wear Daily and W magazine, and his Halloween night 2005 victim had been a co-worker, though they barely knew each other.

Prosecutors have said the Halloween night victim was a stand-in for a former girlfriend and other people he disliked.

During a detailed cross-examination of Kirwin, Assistant District Attorney Maxine Rosenthal got the psychologist to admit that she had not worked as many hours with Braunstein as she had claimed. Kirwin said she charged $275 an hour.

Rosenthal, during three hours of cross-examination, had difficulty getting Kirwin to answer questions directly, simply and without elaboration. Many of those questions centered on Braunstein's ability to concoct a plan and form intent.

The prosecutor asked Kirwin about Braunstein's Internet purchases of the materials he used during the crime, about the motel room he rented two days before the attack on the woman and about his taking $800 from the victim as he left.

Kirwin agreed that mental illness does not keep a person from being able to form intent, but she never conceded that anything Braunstein did during the Halloween night attack resulted from his conscious intent.

Rosenthal also got Kirwin, a Ph.D. in psychology, to acknowledge that of all the mental health professionals Braunstein had seen over the past year or so, only she had diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia.

"So the doctors at Bellevue misdiagnosed him in 2003," the prosecutor asked.

"Yes," Kirwin replied.

"And at Jamaica (Hospital) in 2004?"

"Sadly, they did."

The trial was scheduled to resume Wednesday in Manhattan's state Supreme Court.

(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)