The Manhattan woman accused of stabbing her boyfriend in the chest was still sobbing today as she appeared in court and was ordered held on $125,000 bail.
Yekatrina Pusepa, 22, said nothing, but tears streamed down her face during her criminal court appearance on charges of attempted murder and assault for the attack on her boyfriend Alec Katnelson, 22.
Wearing black sweatpants and a leather jacket, Pusepa looked nothing like the blood-soaked woman hauled off in handcuffs from 33 Gold St. around 3:30 a.m. Friday.
She told cops she grabbed a kitchen knife during the early-morning fight but that Katsnelson took it from her hand and plunged it into his own chest.
But prosecutors say she was the aggressor, wielding two kitchen knives, one in each hand.
She stabbed him in the chest, piercing his chest wall, lung and heart, according to court papers.
Katsnelson underwent surgery at Bellevue Hospital and was listed in stable condition on Friday night.
Pusepa is charged with second-degree attempted murder and assault in the first degree.
But sources said she repeatedly changed her story under questioning. And after Katsnelson got out of surgery, he said she stabbed him.
He and Pusepa have been dating since November, when they moved into a second-floor, $2,300-a-month apartment with Katsnelson’s cousin, said a childhood friend.
Their relationship soon soured and he once tried to kick her out. Cops were called at one point after they got into a fight — and he spent the weekend in jail.
“I hear them arguing a lot, yelling at each other,” a neighbor said. “But I never saw them fighting.”
Their fighting escalated early yesterday.
“I heard a lot of yelling, two people screaming,” said a 26-year-old student who lives in the building. “A lot of the screaming was coming from a woman.”
The argument was so intense, another neighbor was heard yelling, “You guys need to shut up!”
“She was screaming more and louder,” the neighbor said. “It was anger and hostility like someone making threats. You could tell there was a fight.”
Police were called to the building by a different neighbor, Evelyn Gentile, who was awoken by Pusepa’s screams to “Call 911!”
She told the operator, “There is someone bleeding on the street — he’s either shot or stabbed!”
Gentile said Pusepa helped Katsnelson downstairs — his body drenched in blood from neck to waist.
“She was lying on top of him,” Gentile added. “She looked scared.”
Katsnelson’s mother, Lena Katsnelson, told The Post that her son was in the process of getting a restraining order against Pusepa. She described her as a violent girl who’s attacked the Duane Reade worker in the past.
“He’s in love with her,” Lena Katsnelson said. “I tell him this is the wrong relationship but he wouldn’t listen.”
This is not Pusepa’s first brush with the law.
In 2009, she was busted in California for driving under the influence on Christmas Day.