The fiancé of a killer heiress is breaking his silence three years after she fatally shoved a beloved New York voice coach onto a sidewalk in an unprovoked attack.
Naveen Pereira, 30, spoke to the Daily Mail about trying to rebuild his life after his wife-to-be, Lauren Pazienza, was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in prison for the deadly push on the night of March 10, 2022.
He revealed that he ‘misses’ Pazienza, who he last visited in lockup over the holidays.
‘It has been a stressful time,’ said the soft-spoken Pereira, whose longtime girlfriend heartlessly attacked Barbara Gustern, 87, while drunk and high on drugs after the couple was kicked out of a Manhattan park at closing time.
Pazienza, an heiress to a Long Island cesspool-drainage empire, flew into a rage and ran at the elderly Gustern, calling her a ‘b***h’ before shoving her onto the pavement in the Chelsea neighborhood.
The veteran Broadway singing coach, whose students included Blondie front woman Debbie Harry, suffered a traumatic brain injury and died five days later in the hospital.
Pazienza pleaded guilty to manslaughter in September 2023.
Recalling the events of that fateful evening, Pereira shared the couple was out celebrating 100 days until their June nuptials when the night took a dark turn.
‘We got into an argument and then this thing happened. It was unexpected,’ Pereira said of the fatal shove.
‘I don’t feel like I am to blame for her actions,’ he added.
Naveen Pereira, 30, spoke to the Daily Mail about trying to rebuild his life after his wife-to-be, Lauren Pazienza, was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in prison
Pazienza, an heiress to a Long Island cesspool-drainage empire, sat tearfully in court after pleading guilty to manslaughter for the 2022 attack
Pazienza flew into a rage and ran vocal coach at Barbara Gustern, 87, calling her a ‘b***h’ before shoving her onto the pavement
Prior to the random attack, Pazienza had downed several glasses of wine, was high on marijuana, and may also have taken a Xanax, her high-profile defense attorney said.
‘She had drugs, she had maybe two bottles of wine, and a ton of marijuana,’ attorney Arthur Aidala, who has represented disgraced film executive Harvey Weinstein and Rudy Giuliani, previously told the Daily Mail.
He had argued that because Pazienza ‘was bombed,’ she was incapable of forming the intent to harm Gustern.
Pazienza ultimately took a plea deal that gave her significantly less time behind bars than the 25 years she would have risked had she gone to trial.
Debbie Harry had called the sentence a ‘failure to administer adequate punishment.’
Pereira, who works at Microsoft as a customer support specialist, paused when asked if the couple was still engaged, calling it ‘complicated.’
‘Obviously that isn’t happening at this point. I don’t know what the future holds for us,’ he said.
‘She is going to be there for a while and that won’t change,’ he added.
Pereira and Pazienza, who were high school sweethearts, grew up on Long Island and met when they were students at Ward Melville High School in East Setauket.
They stayed together during college, despite Pereira attending Georgia Institute of Technology and Pazienza attending the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.
Eventually, the pair moved to Astoria, Queens, and got engaged in 2018.
Pereira described his ex as a ‘very passionate’ person and admired her for being ‘hardworking,’ but said she was not someone who handled stress and anxiety well.
Her former college classmates previously described her as ‘pure trouble’ and ‘a danger’ who was prone to violence.
Pazienza, seen on family vacation as a teenager, lived a life of privilege before landing behind bars
Pazienza grew up in an affluent family on Long Island and enjoyed Manhattan’s high society. She is seen above in photos from her teenage years
On the night of the attack, after being told to leave the park, Pazienza became ‘angry, started shouting and cursing at the park employee, threw her food onto her fiancé, and stormed out of the park,’ prosecutors said.
Pereira told police that he did not know where she went after they were told to leave and that he planned to return to their apartment in Queens.
Meanwhile, Pazienza charged at Gustern as the 87-year-old waited for a taxi to attend one of her student’s performances, causing her head to violently slam into the pavement.
A cyclist who saw Gustern on the ground bleeding called 911.
Surveillance footage showed Pazienza watching as emergency responders arrived and treated the elderly woman, who had blood seeping from her head.
She then phoned Pereira but ‘said nothing about the fact that she had just shoved an older woman to the cement,’ prosecutors said.
‘Instead, she started to argue with her fiancé, accusing him of ruining her night. Right before they went to bed that night, the defendant finally, for the first time, turned to her fiancé and told him that she had pushed someone. She said that she thought the person had fallen, and she walked away.’
Prosecutors said Pazienza then went to hide at her parent’s Long Island home and spent more than a week trying to cover her tracks.
She quit her job, deleted her social media pages and wedding website, and stashed her phone at her aunt’s home so police wouldn’t find it.
She was named a suspect and on March 19 and turned herself in after police visited her parent’s home.
Pazienza’s high-profile attorney Arthur Aidala (left) and her parents (right)
Gustern’s grandson, AJ Maier Gustern (left), called Pazienza ‘lucky’ to reach a plea deal. ‘I hope you learn some empathy,’ he said, ‘because apparently you’re incapable of empathy’
In 2022, a former friend described Pazienza as having ‘no empathy’ and never showing any remorse for her bad acts.
‘She’s the poster child for white privilege,’ the person said. ‘She never faced any consequences in her life.’
Pazienza’s eight-year sentence was extended for an additional six months after the judge in her case ripped Pazienza for her ‘inability to take responsibility for her actions.’
Gustern’s grandson, AJ Maier Gustern, called Pazienza ‘lucky’ to reach a plea deal.
‘I hope you learn some empathy,’ he said at the time, ‘because apparently you’re incapable of empathy.’
Pereira said the ‘media assumed a lot of things’, adding that both he and his family faced harassment over the ordeal.
‘It’s not been easy for her,’ he said. ‘She is doing the best she can.’ Pereira said Pazienza had been trying to get involved in some type of work or take classes in prison.
‘I think being in there gives you time to think and evaluate your life,’ he said. ‘She is looking forward to restarting her life when she gets out. She misses her life that she had and has realized what she lost. It’s a tough situation.’
Police issued these images of Pazienza after the attack
Pazienza is shown walking near the scene of the crime on March 10, 2022
Pazienza pictured being taken out of the police precinct to the courthouse
He said he occasionally speaks to Pazienza’s parents. ‘It’s hard on everyone,’ he said.
Pereira said it took him a while to settle back in to a routine.
‘I am trying to live life as best as I can. I’m trying to see friends, I keep busy at work and focus on things that make my life happy,’ he said.
Still, Pereira admitted to not dating anyone since because it’s ‘too painful.’
‘This is not the life I envisioned for myself,’ he said.
