Accused “killer nanny” Yoselyn Ortega is fit to stand trial for murdering two young children in their Manhattan apartment, a judge ruled today in rejecting defense claims that she’s mentally no more than a “parakeet.”
Justice Gregory Carro issued his ruling after eight days of conflicting testimony by psychiatric experts spread over three weeks.
“There is clear and convincing evidence that this defendant is fit to stand trial,” he said.
Two psychiatric experts supported the state’s claim that Ortega, 50, is mentally fit despite her catatonic appearances in court since the horrific slayings in October of Leo Krim, 2, and Lulu Krim, 6.
“She’s simply not being honest about it,” Assistant District Attorney Stuart Silberg told the judge. “The person you see sitting there every day is not the true person.”
But Ortega’s lawyer, Valerie Van Leer-Greenberg, said her client can’t remember the killings and was able to respond to questions by repeating what she had heard.
“The defendant is tantamount to a parakeet,” she said.
“She can’t recount anything. It’s closed. It’s not just she can’t tell me what she did inside the apartment. It’s the entire history of the interlude. It’s gone.” Silberg disputed the findings of the defense’s expert psychiatrist, Dr. Karen Rosenbaum, saying she “has a shocking lack of experience” in determining “the fitness of a defendant charged with a double homicide.”
He said that Ortega had been lively and animated in four recently recorded phone calls she made to relatives from her Rikers jail.
“The confusion and lack of understanding of this defendant seems to occur only when she’s questioned in a formal setting by doctors evaluating her fitness,” he said.
Ortega slit her own throat and was found in her employers’ bathroom after a suicide bid. The defense had maintained that she suffered brain damage as a result.