New York psychiatrist woman sentenced to 11 years in prison for attacking her son’s father with a sledgehammer
Pamela Buchbinder, a New York psychiatrist, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for her role in the violent sledgehammer attack on her son’s father a decade ago.
Buchbinder, 52, admitted last month to being involved in the attempted murder of his ex-partner and fellow psychiatrist, Dr. Michael Weiss, succeeded in November 2012. But he later wanted to reverse his guilty plea.
During his sentence in the Manhattan Supreme CourtBuchbinder suddenly tried to withdraw his guilty plea and fire his lawyers after claiming that he had not taken his medications the day he accepted the deal.
She also tried to insist that she was high on secondhand smoke that day because people at the detention center had been smoking synthetic marijuana near her.
Furious Judge Thomas Farber quickly denied her motion, saying Buchbinder “seemed perfectly fine and perfectly coherent” when he accepted the plea deal.
Buchbinder pleaded guilty on September 7 to attempted assault and robbery in the first degree for the November 12, 2012 hit on Weiss. As part of his deal, evaded a charge of attempted murder that she could have landed her up to 25 years in jail if convicted at trial.
Weiss told the court yesterday that he was grateful to avoid trial, but dreaded the day Buchbinder is finally released. “I am thankful that I survived the attack to be here today. I am grateful that this matter is resolved with a plea agreement and avoidance of trial.” But the doctor added: “I still believe that he will do everything in his power to harm me, regardless of the consequences, regardless of the damage it has caused”, quoted by New York Post.
Prosecutors said that Buchbinder had manipulated his younger bipolar cousin, Jacob Nolan, into carrying out the attack.and even took him to a Home Depot store to buy a 10-pound sledgehammer the night before the attack.
He also gave Nolan a knife and a hand-drawn map with directions on how to get to Weiss’s headquarters on West 57th Street, prosecutors said.
Weiss was repeatedly punched and stabbed all over his body in the violent attack, but miraculously survived.
Prosecutors said Buchbinder had hatched the plot after arguing with the victim about visits from her then-6-year-old son. Weiss was granted full custody of the child in the aftermath of the gruesome attack.
Buchbinder had also convinced his ex-partner to name her beneficiary of his $1.5 million life insurance policy in the days before the attack, according to prosecutors.
The doctor was arrested in 2017 and has been in custody ever since. Her accomplice cousin is serving a 9½-year sentence after being convicted of attempted murder in 2016.
