Cleaver-wielding schizophrenic David Tarloff is mentally fit to stand trial in the slashing slay of an Upper East Side psychiatrist — but just barely, and his current address on Rikers Island is making him worse, defense lawyers said today.
With a murder trial still five months off, the defense, prosecutors and the judge agreed that Tarloff must be moved as soon as possible from the general population at Rikers to a psychiatric lockup at Bellevue Hospital.
Tarloff has been at Rikers since June, when state shrinks deemed him fit for a third time to stand trial for the February 2008 murder of beloved Dr. Kathryn Faughey in her East 79th St. offices.
Twice before, in 2010 and in 2011, he had also been deemed mentally fit for trial. But in preparation for trial he was both times moved by health officials from a state psychiatric facility to Rikers, where he quickly relapsed and was found unfit again, scuttling both trials on the brink of jury selection.
“He is still experiencing hallucinations of an audio and visual type,” defense lawyer Frederick Sosinsky told Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Edward McLaughlin today.
“Your honor, since I was 20 years old, I want the District Attorney to know, I’ve been hallucinating … God and the devil,” Tarloff interrupted from the defense table.
“Now that he is in Rikers, there is a steady, slow, decompensation,” added defense lawyer Bryan Konosky.
The judge set Oct. 23 as Tarloff’s next court date.