A scorned lover accused of plunging a kitchen knife into her boyfriend's chest in a vicious domestic dispute has opened up about the pair's fraught relationship and revealed that she still has feelings for the alleged bad boy.
Latvian-born Yekaterina Pusepa, 23, faces attempted-murder charges and is being held on $75,000 bail at New York's Rikers Island.
The only correspondence she has had with her ex, Alec Katsnelson, after the May 2012 fight that saw her led off in handcuffs with blood splattered on her midriff-baring white T-shirt, is a curt order to abort his baby, she claims.
Accused: Latvian-born Yekaterina Pusepa, 23, faces attempted-murder charges and is being held on $75,000 bail at New York's Riker's Island
She says she fell pregnant in March 2012, at around the time the pair's 'exclusive' relationship turned violent, culminating in the angry argument in May.
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Pusepa faces 12 years in prison and will likely be deported to Latvia if she is convicted. The young woman, with her late mother, left her homeland for California when she was 11 and no longer has friends or family in the eastern European country.
In an hours-long jailhouse interview with The New York Post, Pusepa paused when asked if she still loves Katsnelson, 23, who underwent surgery and has now recovered from the stabbing wound.
'I don't know,' she answered softly.
She says her ex, who she met at a nightclub in late 2011, is already back to his partying ways and hasn't come to see her at Rikers Island jail complex.
When she was arrested, Katsnelson told her, through a friend, that he didn't want her to keep the baby, according to The Post.
'He said he wanted me to have an abortion,' she told the newspaper.
Pusepa initially refused but later went through with the procedure after learning the child would have been placed in foster care.
Grisly: Mr Katsnelson (left) was stabbed, allegedly by his girlfriend Pusepa (right)
'I was told the baby would go into the system, and I didn't want that,' she said.
She describes Katsnelson as 'a child.'
'He has no remorse. He supposedly had all these injuries, and he's running around in the streets, smoking ...going to clubs. We're both in this because of what he did.'
The two met at the club Pacha in November 2011, while Pusepa was working as a waitress at Manhattan restaurant Southern Hospitality and Katsnelson managed a Duane Reade drugstore.
She told The Post that he offered her ecstasy and the pair soon began dating.
'We were exclusive,' she says.
Katsnelson, who denies ever selling or using drugs, says Pusepa cheated on him and insists that he never got her pregnant.
'She's lying,' he told the newspaper. 'We weren't even having sex at the end.'
Pusepa admitted to the Post that she abused ecstasy. 'I had a drug problem,' she says.
Story: Pusepa allegedly claimed her boyfriend's wounds were self-inflicted but later changed her story
Bloody: Police found Yekaterina Pusepa standing outside her apartment drenched in blood
She claims a fight last March was sparked when she noticed he'd stolen money from her purse but neighbors at the time told The Post it was triggered after he confronted her about her drug problem.
He 'put his hands on me,' she says of the incident. 'I thought I had broken my tailbone. It hurt so bad, I couldn't sit down.'
Katsnelson was charged with assault and spent a weekend in jail, but charges were later dropped.
She got an order of protection against him but the two reconciled.
'He pursued me, and I was in love. I thought he could change,' she told The Post.
After the May incident, Pusepa first claimed that Katsnelson grabbed the knife and plunged it into his own chest in a suicide attempt, but then she changed her story to say she stabbed him in self-defense.
Katsnelson told police Pusepa flew into a rage when he got a call from another woman and began ransacking his apartment before stabbing him when he tried to stop her.
When police arrived Pusepa was covered in blood in the street, sobbing.
Pusepa's attorney is set to argue self-defense, she says.
And while she still feels fondly for him, Katsnelson told The Post the two will never get back together.
'Everybody has feelings for someone they loved once in their life, but when you have something that traumatic happen, there's no way you can go back,' he said.