Swimsuit Designer's Boyfriend Indicted On Murder Charge
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) -- The boyfriend of a swimsuit designer slain at a chic Manhattan hotel last month has been indicted on a second-degree murder charge, according to court records.
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WCBS 880's Irene Cornell reports
Nicholas Brooks, 24, will be arraigned on the charge Tuesday in Manhattan Supreme Court and faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted. A Manhattan grand jury handed up the indictment after the medical examiner's office ruled that Sylvie Cachay was strangled and drowned.
Cachay was found dead at the Soho House hotel on Dec. 9. She was half-clothed and face-up in a tub full of water with bruises on her neck and a bite mark on her hand. Police said Brooks choked Cachay, and then left her to die in the bathtub.
The medical examiner's office said the 33-year-old died from compression of neck and drowning and she had been forcibly submerged in the tub of a room at the Soho House. The death was ruled a homicide last week.
Brooks had told police that the swimsuit designer was alive when he left her in their room at Soho House on Dec. 9 to go out to a bar. However, he was caught on surveillance video repeatedly entering and leaving the room.
According to friends and family, Cachay was trying to break-up with Brooks but had taken him with her to the hotel after a fire in her apartment. Cachay's family feels Brooks was outraged because she was leaving him.
Brooks' lawyer, Jeffrey Hoffman has said his client is innocent and that he was in shock. "He's not doing well. He's in shock. Somebody who he cared a great deal for and had an intense relationship with is dead," Hoffman said.
When asked if his client was in love with Cachay, Hoffman said that Brooks "had a very close relationship with her."
"They were close. They were together almost all the time — the evidence is going to show that. And he's devastated by the loss," Hoffman said.
Brooks is the son of 72-year-old Oscar-winning songwriter and accused rapist Joseph Brooks.
