Andrew Kelly/Reuters/File
Tyrese Haspil is escorted by New York Police Department officers on July 17, 2020.
CNN
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A former executive assistant to a tech company CEO was convicted Monday of murdering his boss in 2020 and then decapitating and dismembering his body, according to a press release from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors said Tyrese Haspil, 25, killed Saleh to prevent him from finding out that he had embezzled about $400,000 from a venture capitalist and CEO of Gokada, a Nigerian motorcycle ride-hailing service.
A jury on Monday found Haspil guilty of one count of first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree grand larceny, one count of second-degree burglary and other charges, according to a statement from the prosecutor’s office.
“Tyrese Haspil tragically cut short the life of Mr. Saleh, a man with deep ties to his immigrant family who pursued his passion to become a successful entrepreneur,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said. “We hope the accountability shown in today’s sentence will bring some solace to Mr. Saleh’s family as they continue to mourn his loss.”
CNN has reached out to Haspil’s attorney, Sam Roberts, of the Legal Aid Society, which represents New Yorkers who can’t pay for legal services, for comment.
Haspil is scheduled to be sentenced in September, according to the release.
According to the prosecutor’s office, Haspil became Saleh’s assistant in May 2018 and took on various responsibilities, including managing Saleh’s finances, and in the process had access to Saleh’s financial records.
That fall, Haspil began stealing from Saleh’s company using two separate methods, according to the prosecutor’s office: He created multiple financial accounts, including a PayPal account, and funneled funds into them while also creating fake statements to mimic transactions to avoid his superiors’ detection.
Temilade Adelaja/Reuters/File
Gokada co-founder and CEO Fahim Saleh explained his company’s operations in an interview with Reuters in Lagos, Nigeria on May 3, 2019.
According to the announcement, Haspil resigned in May 2019 but continued to steal funds.
According to the statement, in January 2020, one of the frauds was discovered and traced back to Mr. Haspil, after Mr. Saleh confronted the former instructor about stealing $35,000 from the company and offered him a settlement to repay the debt and avoid criminal prosecution.
According to the prosecutor’s office, Haspil agreed to repay Saleh over an agreed upon two-year period, but used money stolen from a PayPal financial fraud to repay the money, resulting in him embezzling about $400,000.
According to the statement, Haspil planned to kill Saleh because he feared Saleh would find out about his continued embezzlement and believed killing his former boss would prevent Saleh from testifying against him.
On July 13, 2020, Haspil allegedly chased Saleh to his Lower East Side apartment, shot him in the back with a Taser and stabbed him multiple times, before returning to the apartment the next day “to dismember the body and clean up the crime scene,” according to the release.
Haspil briefly left the area as he attempted to clean up the crime scene. Saleh’s cousin went to the apartment to investigate and discovered Saleh’s body, decapitated and with his limbs severed, the release said. Haspil did not return to the apartment after seeing police outside.
Police arrested Haspil in Manhattan on July 17.
Mr. Saleh was known for supporting budding tech talent. He was born in Saudi Arabia to Bangladeshi parents, grew up in upstate New York and earned a computer science degree from Bentley University in Massachusetts.
