Pamela Buchbinder, a psychiatrist from New York City who admitted to planning the sledgehammer murder of her child’s father, attempted to withdraw her guilty plea in a dramatic moment in court. She claimed she had been beaten by guards and received a K2 contact high from people smoking on the prison bus.
The predetermined sentence of 11 years in jail, followed by five years of supervised release, was imposed by the judge without delay. Buchbinder already had five years behind bars.
In November 2012, Buchbinder, 52, pleaded to charges of attempted assault and burglary after coercing her 19-year-old cousin, Jacob Nolan, to kill Michael Weiss at Weiss’s home office. The story revolved around a custody dispute involving their then-5-year-old child.
Weiss discussed Buchbinder’s continued troubles in court prior to Buchbinder being sentenced.
Although I am happy that this day has finally come, it hasn’t given me the sense of relief or closure that I had anticipated it would. I still battle with the emotional and physical wounds left by what occurred to me on November 12, 2012, despite the fact that it has been over ten years since my attack,” Weiss stated.
In court, Buchbinder, a licensed psychiatrist, was referred to as an evil genius, a description that her attorney disputed.
Defence lawyer Eric Franz stated, “I don’t know her to be diabolical or a genius – simply words that were opportunistic.”
The evening before the incident in November 2012, Buchbinder went to the Home Depot on West 23rd Street with Nolan and bought a 10-pound sledgehammer with cash. Additionally, Buchbinder provided her cousin with a kitchen knife for the attack.
Nolan was given a map by Buchbinder and told how to get into Weiss’s building. Once inside, Nolan repeatedly stabbed Weiss and swung a sledgehammer at him.
Weiss remarked, “I still struggle to imagine the type of anger that would motivate someone to organize such a planned, terrible attack. I still don’t know how any of this could have happened.”
Nolan was found guilty of attempted murder in 2016 and given a 9 1/2-year prison term in the state of New York.
