Metro

Shrink’s butcher a real psycho: expert

TARLOFF: ‘Yep, he’s nuts’: doc. (
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An expert witness called by the defense team of cleaver-swinging maniac David Tarloff testified yesterday that the killer wasn’t faking his psychotic symptoms.

Psychologist Dr. Barry Rosenfeld, of Fordham University, said he evaluated Tarloff three times after the murder of Dr. Kathryn Faughey and described the paranoid schizophrenic as agitated and unfocused.

“He couldn’t sit still. He was leaving the room constantly, apologizing, and saying, ‘I just can’t do this,’ ” the psychologist said in Manhattan Supreme Court.

Defense Attorney Bryan Konoski asked the psychologist whether he believed Tarloff, 45, was exaggerating his symptoms.

“I don’t believe he was faking it,” Rosenfeld said.

Tarloff is on trial for killing psychologist Faughey, 56, with a meat cleaver five years ago during a botched robbery at her Upper East Side office. His intended target was Faughey’s colleague, Dr. Kent Shinbach, who 17 years prior had treated Tarloff and had him involuntarily committed.