The madman accused of savagely stabbing two little kids in Brooklyn told cops, “I think I need a lawyer,” new court papers reveal – raising the possibility that he understands the process well enough to preclude an insanity defense.
Daniel St. Hubert, 27, was arraigned Wednesday on murder and assault raps for fatally knifing Prince Joshua “PJ” Avitto, 6, and wounding Mikayla Capers, 7, in an East New York elevator on June 1.
Police arrested St. Hubert three days after the attack. When questioned by NYPD detectives in the 90th Precinct in Williamsburg, St. Hubert said, “Satan has power and controls things. I think I need a lawyer,” court papers state.
St. Hubert asked for a lawyer as cops read him his Miranda rights, a law-enforcement source said.
A Brooklyn law-enforcement source said St. Hubert’s request for a lawyer could be used as an argument against his pleading insanity.
“One of the main questions is, ‘Do you understand the process and can you assist with your own defense?” the source said.
“At the time St. Hubert answered the question he understood the process, so he could assist with his own defense.”
In court defense attorney Edward Friedman asked Brooklyn Supreme Court judge Neil Firetog for extra time to put forward a psychiatric defense.
“It’s certainly indicative of being in a frame of mind that’s not ordinary or what a layman would think is lucid, but that has to be explored,” St. Hubert defense attorney Edward Friedman said after court.
“Depending on a person’s religion, there are people who believe in Satan and think that is a reasonable thing to believe.”
About 40 heartbroken Avitto and Capers family members packed the courtroom to stare down St. Hubert, who pleaded not guilty.
The parents of slain PJ, Nicholas Avitto and Aricka McClinton, said they were wearing the same clothes to court Wednesday that they wore to their son’s graduation a year and a half ago.
“We have on the same exact clothes that we walked our baby down the street to his school but we never going to walk him nowhere else again! Why? Why? Because someone killed our baby because the Rikers system let this fool out of jail and didn’t give him no medicine, no treatment, no nothing,” sobbed McClinton.
“There has to be something to something in place for these people to go to instead of these people walking the street killing people’s kids.”
Asked what he missed most about his son, Nicholas Avitto said, “Everything. I miss his laughter. I miss his presence.”
The Post reported last month that St. Hubert told the manager of a homeless shelter where he stayed the night of murder, “I did bad things … The devil made me do it.”
Asked by cops how his fingerprints ended up in the elevator, he answered, “The devil put my prints there.”