The son of Oscar winning accused perv composer Joseph Brooks was charged with attempted murder this evening in the death of a swimsuit fashion designer found splayed out and half-naked in a SoHo House hotel bathtub, sources told The Post.
Nick Brooks, who had been held at the 6th Precinct until tonight after Sylvie Cachay’s body was found early Thursday, was charged as cops obtained warrants to search his body for physical evidence of a struggle and collect DNA, the sources said.
He was booked for attempted murder in the second degree and strangulation, a new felony offense signed into law by Gov. Paterson just eight days ago to cover domestic assaults where a victim’s airways are constricted.
“We have enough [evidence] at this point to charge him with attempted murder and strangulation,” said NYPD Spokesman Paul Browne. “He talked to us but has not confessed.”
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Sources said that District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr.’s office, made the decision to charge Brooks with only attempted murder, and not murder.
A police source said that cops can prove that he choked Cachay, thus the strangulation charge, but not prove that the choking caused her death.
“He definitely intended to kill her, but we can’t prove that he did,” the source said. “We’re not sure if strangulation or drowning caused her death.
The source said investigators are still probing the crime and hope that more evidence will come in and the charges can be upgraded.
“That’s a possibility,” a source said.
The dramatic development came as Cachay’s anguished parents tried to come to grips with her death.
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“There’s foul play here and I want justice applied,” Cachay’s father, Dr. Antonio Cachay told The Post inside the McLean, Va., home about 10 miles outside of Washington, DC.
Cachay broke up with Brooks, 26, a day before her death.
The parents said the four-month relationship began earlier this year after Cachay’s poodle Pepper was hit by a car — and Brooks was there every day to comfort her and stay with the dog while he was in the hospital.
“She was devastated,” Sylvia Cachay said of her daughter when the dog died. “It was the end of the world.”
The Post reported that Cachay and Brooks arrived together at the SoHo House at around 12:30 a.m. on Thursday.
Sources said Cachay accused her beau of accidentally setting fire earlier in the night to her West 10th Street apartment by leaving lit candles behind her bed. “He’s a stoner,” she told the front-desk clerk, according to police. “He’s always stoned. Who puts candles behind the bed?”
Brooks told a hotel worker that during the apartment blaze, he came out of the bathroom to find Cachay’s hair and the bed on fire, sources said. The couple put out the blaze, but wanted to stay somewhere else because of the smoky smell.
Cachay’s Soho House membership gave her privileges to rent rooms whenever she wanted.
She told the front-desk clerk that she was “really tired” and couldn’t stay awake after downing Xanax. She was so drugged, the concierge had to help her to her room. As the clerk was leaving the room, she heard Cachay shouting at Brooks before going abruptly quiet.
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Video footage shows that Brooks went in and out of the room repeatedly in the hours that followed, but was inside from 1:45 a.m. to 2:16, at which time he left to have food and drinks with a pal, sources said.
Five minutes before he left, the front desk received its first water complaint.
When staffers arrived in the room, he was gone, and Cachay was in the 6½-foot oval tub wearing just a black T-shirt and panties. They immediately made efforts to revive her before calling 911.
She was declared dead at the scene.
Cachay said his 33-year-old daughter — who was found early Thursday morning after overflowing water cascaded to rooms below — would have never taken a bath.
“She was not the type of girl who would sit in the tub. She would take a shower and be on her way. Something really bad happened here,” he said.
Cachay’s parents, both wearing bathrobes during their interview with The Post, clearly had not slept all night.
Cachay had told them during a vacation in Cancun over Thanksgiving weekend that she was going to break it off with Brooks.
The parents said the breakup was amicable — although they admit they never cared much for him.
Cachay’s mother Sylvia said her daughter no longer wanted to date Brooks because he had no job.
“He gets a job — then he drops out,” her mother said of Brooks, who claimed to work for his dad.
Brooks’ father Joseph — the composer of “You Light Up My Life” — was indicted this year on 82 counts of sexually abusing 11 starlets.
At one point, Sylvia Cachay, an artist, broke down into tears when speaking about her daughter. She also said her daughter loved to party, but “she didn’t drink or do drugs” — ruling out that she may have overdosed on something.
The parents also said Brooks and their daughter were friends for about a month when they began to date.
“No, she was like, ‘We are not boyfriend and girlfriend. We are friends. You can call me, you can visit me, but we are not in a relationship until you clean up. She thought he had potential,” Cachay’s mother added.