Metro

‘Crazy killer’ Tarloff liked ‘cocaine and prostitutes’: prosecutor

He partied like a madman.

More than a few juror eyebrows were raised in the murder trial of David Tarloff today, when a defense psychiatrist said the cleaver-swinging schizophrenic enjoyed cocaine, marijuana and hookers.

“Are you aware that the defendant patronized prostitutes?” prosecutor Evan Krutoy asked the shrink, throwing what could be a literal kink in to Tarloff’s insanity defense.

“I am aware that he said he patronized prostitutes,” answered Dr. Eric Goldsmith, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the NYU School of Medicine. “I recalled that the records document that.”

“And in addition to using cocaine, that is another illegal activity?” the prosecutor asked. The doctor answered yes.

Tarloff’s lawyers are insisting that he is too mentally ill to have understood he was doing anything wrong five years ago, when he stormed into the East 79th Street office of beloved psychologist Dr. Kathryn Faughey, bludgeoning and stabbing her to death during a botched robbery.

Prosecutors are using the defense’s own witnesses to show jurors that Tarloff was functional enough over the past two decades to hold jobs and break the drug and vice laws without getting caught.

Any partying Tarloff may have done doesn’t negate his serious mental illness, defense lawyers counter.

“If he used drugs and he used prostitutes, I don’t think this overshadows his 17 years of hospitalizations,” defense lawyer Bryan Konoski said after court.

Psychiatric testimony for both the defense and, later, the prosecution is expected to continue into April.

Tarloff faces up to life in prison if convicted of murder, and an indeterminate term in a locked psychiatric facility if found not guilty by reason of mental illness.