The woman who fatally stabbed her father outside her Brooklyn home claims she acted in self-defense after the belligerently drunk man threw a punch at her, prosecutors revealed Thursday.
Josephine Santiago, 20, was ordered held without bail on charges of murder and criminal possession of a weapon during her arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court Thursday.
She is accused of repeatedly stabbing her father, Jose Acevedo, 41, in the chest and back during a violent confrontation late Tuesday night.
Prosecutors said Santiago and Acevedo got into an argument outside her home on De Sales Place near Broadway in Bushwick just before 11 p.m. Witnesses reported hearing the two shouting, with Santiago demanding that her father leave.
When he refused, the fight turned deadly.
In a video statement Santiago allegedly made to police after her arrest, she admitted to the stabbing and claimed Acevedo was drunk, telling cops her father “gets belligerent” when he drinks, according to prosecutors.
Santiago claimed Acevedo insulted her, she told him to leave, he punched her and then she started stabbing.
The scene where Jose Acevedo, 41, was stabbed to death outside 12 De Sales Place in Brooklyn on Tuesday. (Shawn Inglima / New York Daily News)
A responding officer found Santiago standing over her father’s bloodied body, prosecutors said. She allegedly admitted to the officer she stabbed her father and pointed to the knife she used.
While there is video evidence of Santiago holding a knife before the stabbing, the moment of the attack was not caught on camera since it took place inside the building’s vestibule, prosecutors said. Witnesses arrived at the scene in the aftermath but did not see the stabbing itself.
“There are some mitigating facts here that I’m asking the court to consider,” Santiago’s attorney said at her arraignment. “I do think, Judge, that there is a surface-level, at the very least, self-defense claim here.”
Acevedo, who had an extensive criminal record and lived in Harlem, was rushed to Brookdale University Hospital, where he died.
Santiago, an apprentice at a barber school, is due back in court on March 10.