Elderly NYC Vocal Coach's Fatal Shover Pleads Guilty, DA Says

NEW YORK CITY — The woman who fatally shoved a beloved 87-year-old Broadway vocal coach pleaded guilty to manslaughter Wednesday, prosecutors said.

Lauren Pazienza, 27, copped a manslaughter plea Wednesday that will guarantee she spends at least eight years in prison, said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

"Lauren Pazienza aggressively shoved Barbara Gustern to the ground and walked away as the beloved New Yorker lay there bleeding," Bragg said in a statement.

"Today’s plea holds Pazienza accountable for her deadly actions."

Those deadly actions took place near West 28th Street and Eighth Avenue on March 10, 2022, when Pazienza shouted obscenities and knocked Gustern to the concrete, authorities said.

Gustern — whose vocal coaching clients included Blondie singer Debbie Harry, among many others — suffered a massive hemorrhage on the left side of the brain and died five days later, according to prosecutors.

The younger woman took the subway to her Astoria apartment, deleted her wedding website and social media accounts and told her fiancé what had happened later that night, prosecutors said.

Pazienza, originally from Port Jefferson, ultimately fled to family in Long Island, said prosecutors.

The fatal attack by a flame-haired woman seen in surveillance footage, and later identified as Pazienza, prompted outrage and grief across New York City.

After a days-long search, Pazienza turned herself into police and faced indictment in May.

Pazienza had been asked to leave Chelsea Park before the fatal shove, according to prosecutors.

Gustern's grandson, who appeared in court Wednesday for the plea, told reporters Pazienza was a person who didn't like being told no and lashed out.

"She was angry that she was asked to leave," her grandson said. "She didn't go after some 6-foot-tall, 200-pound guy. She went after my 80-pound grandmother."