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Post Info TOPIC: Prosecutors: Writer bought chemicals, police badge on eBay months before Halloween attack


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Prosecutors: Writer bought chemicals, police badge on eBay months before Halloween attack


Prosecutors: Writer bought chemicals, police badge on eBay months before Halloween attack

(lovely mugshot @ link)

NEW YORK A writer accused of a Halloween sex attack on a former colleague began acquiring supplies up to 10 months before the assault, according to the eBay transaction records prosecutors presented Thursday at his sex abuse trial.

Under the user names "drgroovy" and "gulagmeister," struggling journalist Peter Braunstein purchased chloroform, a firefighter uniform and smoke-bomb materials that he used in a 13-hour attack on a former colleague from Fairchild Publications, where he worked as a writer for Women's Wear Daily until 2002.

After his dismissal from the magazine and a break-up with a girlfriend, his lawyers say, he became unhinged, and the stress culminated in the attack on Oct. 31, 2005, in the victim's Manhattan apartment.

Braunstein, 42, has pleaded not guilty to a 13-count indictment that includes charges of sex abuse, assault, kidnapping, burglary and arson. His lawyers claim he suffers from an undiagnosed mental illness, which prevented him from forming the conscious intent to commit a crime.

Sporting a new short haircut, Braunstein appeared more attentive to the testimony than in previous days, when he seemed to drift in and out of consciousness.

The woman testified Monday that her attacker gained access to her home by setting fires in the hallway and dressing as a firefighter. Once inside her apartment, the woman said, he put a gun to her head and knocked her out with chloroform before tying her to the bed and groping her. He left the next morning with her Louis Vuitton bag and a fur coat.

On Thursday, prosecutors introduced records from Braunstein's eBay account, showing that he made his first purchase of 250 ml of chloroform on Jan. 6, 2005.

EBay fraud investigator Jeremy Roybal testified that



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Associated Press
EBay Official Testifies in Assault Case
By SAMUEL MAULL 05.04.07, 8:57 AM ET



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A man accused of dressing as a firefighter and sexually assaulting a co-worker in her apartment bought items online for the attack, including firefighter's gear and chemicals to make smoke bombs, prosecutors said Thursday.

Jeremy Roybal, an eBay (nasdaq: EBAY - news - people ) official from San Jose, Calif., testified at Peter Braunstein's trial that company records showed the freelance journalist ordered a total of 750 milliliters of chloroform and four kilograms of potassium nitrate months before the 2005 Halloween attack.

Braunstein also bought firefighting gear, a gas mask, an obsolete Detroit police badge, a Fire Department of New York windshield sticker and a camcorder, said Roybal, a fraud investigator at eBay. He ordered other items, including a pellet gun, handcuffs, leg irons and a knife, from a sporting and hunting goods site, said John T. Turner, the site's chief financial officer.

Braunstein, 43, is accused of using the potassium nitrate to create fire and smoke bombs in the hallway outside the apartment of a 34-year-old former co-worker at Fairchild Publications, publishers of Women's Wear Daily and W magazine. Prosecutors say he dressed in firefighter's clothing, banged on her door and sexually assaulted her when he got inside.

Justice Thomas Farber also decided Thursday that evidence from Braunstein's computer showing his searches for things like "rape" and "chloroform" and "bondage" could be presented to the jury.

Though Braunstein has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping, burglary, sex abuse and robbery, his lawyers concede he attacked the woman, but they say he is mentally ill and therefore should not be held criminally responsible.

When he was captured on the University of Memphis campus Dec. 16, 2005, after six weeks on the run, Braunstein stabbed himself in the neck with a dagger. He was subdued by police with pepper spray and arrested.



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How is it ebay allows the sale of chloroform and potassium nitrate on their site? I guess the profits off the sale of these items is too much for ebay to pass up. Never mind the harm that is done to people from these items.



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284dan wrote:

How is it ebay allows the sale of chloroform and potassium nitrate on their site? I guess the profits off the sale of these items is too much for ebay to pass up. Never mind the harm that is done to people from these items.



They do not care about anything but a quick and dirty buck. They could not care less whether anyone gets raped or killedpoisoned or whatever,
...as long as they get a cut
.

You wanna see something funny?

gulagmeister is still a member in good standing as I post this.

That was the name I remeber from reports of the original incident

drgroovy might be too.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

Ebay likes to keep It's membership numbers as high as possible.

Regardless.



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