“He said he’d kill me and no one would know.”
The former lover of the Ivy League educated attorney — on trial for the murder of his Weight Watchers executive girlfriend — cried uncontrollably in front of jurors on Wednesday as she remembered the times she was under his allegedly abusive thumb.
“I took too long to respond to his call and when I got home he yelled at me, took a kitchen knife and started swinging it at me,” said Jasmine Nieves, a witness prosecutor’s re-called to the stand for their rebuttal case against, Jason Bohn.
Nieves, 29, often glanced at the jurors as tears rolled down her face and became inaudible at times while describing her worst encounters with Bohn.
“He started choking me. I couldn’t breathe and he said he’d kill me and no one would know,” she said.
Bohn accused Nieves of cheating on him with a co-worker while they lived together in Jacksonville, Fla. — one of the many locations the pair resided during their seven year relationship that ended when Danielle Thomas came in the picture in Dec. 2011.
The 35-year-old Columbia University graduate admitted he beat and strangled Thomas to death inside their Astoria apartment on June 24, 2012 but claims he suffers from a condition known as “Intermittent Explosive Disorder,” stemming from a traumatic childhood caused by his mother abandoning him.
Prosecutors rested their case with Nieves, hoping to convince jurors that Bohn did not act out because of a mental disorder or under the legal terms of extreme emotional distress, but because he has a history of abusive behavior with his girlfriends.
Nieves said Bohn’s abuse began within five months of their relationship when they were both students in college in New York City.
“He gave me list of things to do and gave me a week or a few days to do them and if I didn’t finish he’d get angry and aggressive,” she said.
“Sometimes he’d get so mad it was scary, his face would get red and his eyes would get really big and he spit a lot while yelling,” she cried.
Nieves admitted that there were “good times” during their partnership, yet, on the other hand, she repeatedly told Bohn to seek help because “he can’t be a lawyer and act this way.”
“He said he knew he needed help and it would get him into trouble one day. He knew he had to change,” she said Bohn told her.
Nieves never filed charges against Bohn because she was “afraid of the repercussions.”
During the 7-week trial, jurors heard testimony from police about a May 24, 2012 incident where Thomas was allegedly so severely beaten that neighbors called for 911 because of the screams. They saw emails between the couple on June 7, 2012 where Bohn accused Thomas of cheating on him with her ex-boyfriend and also threatened to violently rape her. The jurors also heard Bohn on a seething voicemail message recorded during the murder repeatedly asking Thomas about a “508” area code number she may have called.
Prosecutors and the defense each rested their cases. Closing arguments are expected on Monday.