A New York City former dominatrix who fed poisoned cheesecake to her lookalike friend in a plot to steal her identity was found guilty of attempted murder on Wednesday.
Russia-born Viktoria Nasyrova, 47, was convicted of trying to kill eyelash stylist Olga Tsvyk by serving her the spiked dessert. “She laced a slice of cheesecake with a deadly drug so she could steal her unsuspecting victim’s most valuable possession, her identity,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said in a statement Thursday. “Fortunately, her victim survived and the poison led right back to the culprit.”
Katz explained that the perpetrator and victim look alike, with dark hair and matching skin tones, and that Nasyrova had hoped to pass as Tsvyk.
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On Aug. 28, 2016, Nasyrova showed up at Tsvyk’s home in Queens with the cheesecake during an emergency eyelash appointment. After eating two slices of the cake herself, Nasyrova then offered the third piece to Tsvyk. Prosecutors said Tsvyk soon became unwell and fell unconscious, with doctors later saying she had been close to a heart attack.
After being found by a friend and rushed to the hospital, Tsvyk recovered and returned home to find that valuable items including her passport and jewelry had gone missing. Prosecutors said that a test on residue from the cheesecake box turned up traces of phenazepam—a strong sedative developed in the Soviet Union. They further claimed that Nasyrova scattered phenazepam pills around Tsvyk’s unconscious body to make it look like a suicide attempt.
Nasyrova was arrested and, in 2018, indicted for the botched killing. As well as being found guilty of attempted murder, Nasyrova was also convicted of unlawful imprisonment and assault.
She now faces up to 25 years in prison at a sentencing hearing scheduled for March 21.
Despite not testifying at trial, Nasyrova previously denied the allegations by claiming that Tsvyk was merely sick with something else. “The last time I saw Olga, she was already not feeling good—she said she either ate something or got food poisoning,” Nasyrova told the New York Post in a 2017 jailhouse interview.
At trial, prosecutors also called on the testimony of other alleged victims who claimed to have been affected by previous poison plots involving Nasyrova. Ruben Borukhov, 54, testified that he had passed out after eating some fish served to him by Nasyrova at her Brooklyn apartment in 2016. He said that the following weeks were hazy but that when he returned to mental clarity he found that his watch was missing and his credit card had incurred about $2,600 in unfamiliar charges.
And the court also heard testimony from the daughter of Alla Alekseenko—a Russian woman whom Nasyrova allegedly murdered in 2014. Nadezda Ford, Alekseenko’s daughter, told jurors that someone had swiped valuables including the family gold and a toothbrush from her mother’s house following the death.
Ford said she confronted Nasyrova about the alleged fatal poisoning of her mother, and Russian authorities arrested and interviewed the former dominatrix, but they ultimately let her go.
They charged Nasyrova with Alekseenko’s murder later in 2014, and Interpol issued a Red Notice for her arrest after finding that Nasyrova had already left the country. In Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, Nasryova worked as a dominatrix under the name “Rachel” or “Mara” before she was ultimately found and arrested by the NYPD in 2017.
Speaking about Wednesday’s verdict, Nasryova’s lawyer Christopher W. Hoyt said: “While we are disappointed with the jury’s verdict, we respect it and are exploring our options going forward.”
Read it at New York Post
