The deranged sicko who slaughtered a beloved creative producer — trailing her inside her Chinatown apartment and stabbing her to death with a knife from her own kitchen — took a plea deal Tuesday that could keep him locked up for life.
Assumed Nash, 27, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and first-degree burglary as a sexually motivated felony for butchering Christina Yuna Lee, a Rutgers University graduate who worked in digital media, after he followed her into her Chrystie Street home on Feb. 13, 2022.
The cold-blooded killer, wearing an orange jumpsuit, a cast on his right hand and a face mask, stared straight at Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Laura Ward as he accepted the plea, which carries a promised sentence of 30-years-to-life in state prison.
As Ward read him the terms of the agreement — noting that he had knowingly broken into Lee’s apartment to hurt her for “sexual gratification” — Nash denied it, unleashing a bizarre, nearly inaudible rant.
“That parts not true,” he mumbled before his attorneys jumped in, with Nash eventually admitting his carnal urges in the shocking crime, telling the judge “yes” when she re-read that part of the agreement.
Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Dafna Yorna told the judge that having Nash plead guilty to second-degree murder would “enable a longer sentence that wouldn’t possible” had he still faced the initial first-degree murder rap, which carries a sentence of 25-to-life in prison or life without parole.
Nash was caught on surveillance camera trailing Lee up six flights of stairs after she came home from a night out at around 4:20 a.m. before he ran up behind her and pushed his way inside her apartment, Manhattan prosecutors said.
“Help me! Call 911!” Lee, who worked as a senior creative producer at digital music platform Splice, was heard screaming by neighbors.
But her desperate cries came too late as Nash had stabbed her at least 40 times, including in the head, neck and torso, and left her body in the bathtub, prosecutors have said.
The cowardly Nash had infamously tried escaping the apartment through the fire escape but was spooked when he saw a police officer on the roof above him.
He was eventually found hiding underneath the victim’s bed, with the bloodied kitchen knife hidden behind a dresser in the bedroom, cops said.
Nash’s guilty plea comes near two years after he proclaimed his innocence to The Post, bragging that he didn’t think prosecutors had enough evidence to lock him up.
“They gotta have you on camera killing her. They don’t got me on camera killing her. They only got me on camera following her into the building,” Nash said at the time, claiming that he was “too high” on a “dust and K2” cocktail to remember the moments leading up to the killing.
Nash also claimed that Lee, who worked on campaigns for Google, Twix and Equinox, had “invited” him — a homeless, career criminal with robberies and petit crimes on his rap sheet — over for a drink because she was having a party.
He also said he had “mental problems” since childhood, but couldn’t identify a specific diagnosis — but said he was taking Remeron, an anti-depressant, while locked up in May 2022.
The murder of Lee, who was of Korean-American descent, sparked community leaders to demand action from the city when attacks against Asian American Pacific Islander New Yorkers skyrocketed in 2022.
“Today Assamad Nash was held accountable for senselessly taking Christina Yuna Lee’s life after he followed her into her own home,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement.
“Ms. Yuna Lee’s family and loved ones were deprived of a daughter, sister, and friend. My thoughts are with her family and our community as they continue healing from this tragedy.”
Lee’s family, who declined to comment following Nash’s guilty plea, sued New York City and the NYPD in 2023 over alleged inaction, claiming that the NYPD failed to intervene during the vicious murder.
Nash is expected to be sentenced on July 30. His defense attorney, Michael Gompers, did not immediately return request for comment.
