New York: The playboy boyfriend of a fashion designer has been convicted of strangling and drowning her in the bath at a swanky hotel after a tumultuous six-month relationship.
Nicholas Brooks, whose father was an Oscar-winning composer who wrote You Light Up My Life put his face in his hands silently as the murder verdict was read on Thursday local time.
His girlfriend, Sylvie Cachay, was found partially clothed in an overflowing bathtub on December 9, 2010.
Cachay’s friends cheered and Brooks’ sister wept loudly and shook as the judge set a sentencing date of August 26.
Brooks, 27, faces a possible sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
Defence attorney Jeffrey Hoffman argued Cachay drowned accidentally, passing out from an overdose of prescription pills she took to treat migraines and fibromyalgia, a disorder that causes widespread pain in the body. He said investigators arrested Brooks because they needed a suspect in the high-profile killing.
He said during closing arguments this week that Cachay, 33, was “under the influence of drugs, partially clothed, to say the least not in a rational state” when she got into the tub. Outside court on Thursday, he said he was “very disappointed” and would appeal.
Prosecutors sought to show that Brooks strangled Cachay because she was breaking up with him. The medical examiner ruled that forcible drowning and strangulation caused her death, in part because of bruising on her neck and burst blood vessels in and around her eyes.
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