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Upper East Side Teacher Claims Friend "Tortured, Mutilated And Murdered" Her Cat
By
Ben Yakas
Published May 12, 2013
Modified May 12, 2013
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By
Ben Yakas
Published May 12, 2013
Modified May 12, 2013
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An Upper East Side teacher claims that a former college friend destroyed her apartment and murdered her cat last year. Jessica Barrish is suing Joseph Ari Chiesa, claiming he snuck into her apartment on E 86th Street in May 2012 and “tortured, mutilated and murdered Jessica’s companion animal, Cassie, and laid waste to the apartment.”
Barrish, who had attended Wharton College in Massachusetts with Chiesa, had invited him to her 29th birthday party at her apartment on May 12th. While Barrish went out with friends later in the night to keep partying, Chiesa allegedly stayed behind in the apartment, smashing lamps, stealing a $3,000 bracelet, and repeatedly hitting the cat against a chair and a window screen. When Barrish got back to the apartment, “she found a paper towel covered in blood, a pair of pajamas which was spotted with blood, and blood splattered on the walls of the apartment and on the living room couch.”
“Cassie hid in the corner of Jessica’s bedroom and died of her injuries,” the lawsuit says. Barrish now has “flashbacks from the scene and nightmares about it virtually every day since.” She is seeking $2 million in property damages and mental suffering.
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death
jessica barrish
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ues
upper east side
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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