A sex worker has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for fatally drugging four clients including a top New York City chef in order to rob them “for a few quick dollars”.
Angelina Barini, 43, was sentenced in Brooklyn federal court on Tuesday after pleading guilty back in August to charges that she distributed fentanyl-laced drugs and the date rape drug GBL to her victims, resulting in their deaths.
Prosecutors said Barini went on the killing spree in the summer of 2019, meeting clients in motel rooms across New York City and plying them with lethal doses of drugs.
Once the men were incapacitated by the drugs, she would rob them of their money and personal belongings and leave them for dead.
Across a six-week period, four of her clients died from drug overdoses.
Barini met her first victim at a motel in Astoria, Queens, on 4 July 2019, and gave him fentanyl-laced drugs, according to prosecutors.
She left the victim in the motel room where he was found dead later that day.
Seven days later on 11 July 2019, she met up with her second victim at a motel in Woodside, Queens, and again gave him fentanyl-laced drugs that killed him.
The third victim died the same way at a motel in College Point, Queens, on 5 August 2019.
On 18 August, Barini’s fourth and last known victim Andrea Zamperoni — the head chef at iconic Manhattan restaurant Cipriani Dolci – was drugged with the date rape drug GBL at a motel room in an Elmhurst, Queens.
After Mr Zamperoni died, prosecutors said Barini tried to dispose of his body by wrapping it in bleach-stained sheets and shoving it inside a garbage bin.
She also called a friend asking them for a hacksaw and a hand truck, according to court documents.
Three days later, police showed up at the motel room and found the chef’s decomposing body.
Barini was still staying in the motel room with his remains and had stolen his credit card, which her ex-boyfriend was allegedly using to buy items.
She later confessed to police what she had done saying “I’m sorry”.
At last week’s sentencing, Barini had pleaded with the judge for leniency, pointing to her own drug addiction and troubled background.
But Brooklyn Federal Judge Brian Cogan dismissed her pleas, saying that “there is no level of disadvantage of being raised that can mitigate what you did here… drug addiction or no drug addiction, something has to kick in”.
In a media release announcing the sentencing, Breon Peace, the US attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said Barini “drugged and killed multiple people for a few quick dollars”.
“She stole their personal belongings while they lay unconscious dying from the lethal drugs she gave them,” he said.
