Lauren Pazienza Port Jefferson Facebook, Instagram - Barbara Maier Gustern Tribute

A 26-year-old Long Island woman has been arrested on a manslaughter charge in the death of a beloved 87-year-old singing coach who was shoved from behind on a Manhattan sidewalk in what authorities described as a random unprovoked and senseless attack, authorities said Tuesday. The arrest of Lauren Pazienza, of Port Jefferson, comes a day after the NYPD declared Barbara Gustern"s case a homicide investigation and 12 days after the nighttime attack on a sidewalk near West 28th Street and Eighth Avenue in Chelsea. Cops had been looking for Pazienza for nearly two weeks, releasing clear surveillance footage from a subway station late last week as they sought to identify their suspect. The NYPD said she turned herself in Tuesday accompanied by an attorney, though the name of that attorney wasn"t immediately clear. She was arraigned later in the afternoon, with cash bail set at $500,000. Pazienza"s former employer, French high-end furniture and home accessory designer and retailer Roche Bobois, said the woman resigned from her role in December. It said it had no additional comments at this time. Gustern was just steps away from her home, around 8:30 p.m. the night of March 10, when cops say a woman believed to be Pazienza attacked her. No words were exchanged before it. And the attacker just casually appeared to walk off afterward. Gustern was left bleeding profusely, and a witness helped Gustern into the lobby of her building where she recalled what happened before she lost consciousness at the hospital. She suffered traumatic brain damage from which she would not recover even if she survived, authorities and the woman"s grandson said. She ended up dying five days after the attack. Her grandson, who visited her in the hospital while she was unconscious, said he was pleased with Pazienza"s arrest but stressed that in his mind, the woman is innocent until proven guilty. He also said his grandmother"s funeral is Saturday. Surveillance video from the corner of West 28th Street and Ninth Avenue minutes after the attack showed a woman matching Pazienza"s description walking in the same direction a witness told police the attacker went. Additional surveillance footage tracked Pazienza to Penn Station, where police were able to get a clearer image of her. Two people who know Pazienza identified her as the woman seen there, prosecutors said. Other security video showed that Pazienza spent more than 20 minutes in and around the area where the alleged incident occurred, according to prosecutors. About seven minutes after the attack, she was seen in a physical altercation with a man believed to be her fiancé, prosecutors said, adding that she was later seen watching the ambulance as it arrived at the scene of the attack. She and her fiancé were later seen at Penn Station, where both swiped his MetroCard. Detectives were able to track the pair back to Astoria, where they live, with video from about an hour and a half after the attack showing Pazienza and her fiancé enter their building. She was wearing the same clothes as the woman seen crossing Ninth Avenue immediately following the attack. NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig delivered an impassioned plea last week as he sought the public"s help solving this disgusting, disgraceful offense committed against a vulnerable, elderly female who was doing nothing but walking down the streets of New York City.\n According to The New York Times, Gustern was an acclaimed singing coach who once helped train rock singer Debbie Harry and the cast of the 2019 Broadway revival of the musical Oklahoma! A neighbor said that Gustern used to perform on Broadway herself, along with her late husband.


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