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More About Suspected Halloween Rapist
By
Jen Chung
Published Nov 7, 2005
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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By
Jen Chung
Published Nov 7, 2005
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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More and more bizarre details (even more than yesterday) trickle out about suspected fake-firefighter-rapist Peter Braunstein. The freelance writer is belived to have an apartment in Harlem, watching coverage of his crime from a midtown hotel. His father, Alberto Braunstein, continues to feel guilty and apologizes to the woman who was attacked by a man disguised as a firefighter; the police believe it was Braunstein since he worked with her at Women's Wear Daily and has a history of stalking and looking for the spotlight. And following up on yesterday's news that he'd fabricated a story about an ex stalking him to get in PAge Six, he also threatened other women that he'd plant unflattering items about them in Page Six if they turned on him. The Post adds that he lied about his lifestyle, saying he lived with a wealthy woman on Park Avenue but it was really his' mother's place in Kew Gardens: "'It's a two-bedroom, and it's prewar, so it does have oversized rooms, but they don't even have an eat-in kitchen,' a neighbor said." Gothamist hopes that the media attention on Braunstein will lead him to turn himself in sooner or others to alert the police to his whereabouts, because this story doesn't seem to be going anywhere good.
And the story's old media connection: Braunstein was fired from WWD after "storming out" when reprimanded for "harassing a Vogue public-relations man for tickets to the VH1 Fashion Awards"; fellow VH1 Fashion Awards tickets-wanting WWD staffer Jacob Bernstein, son of Carl and Nora Ephron, kept his job because he, ostensibly, didn't storm out.
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Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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