A man on trial for stabbing to death his philanthropist mother in their Upper East Side apartment more than three years ago committed the horrific crime because his mom wouldn’t let him smoke cigarettes and drink soda, prosecutors told jurors Monday.
“It was just a bad day. I was just tired of sitting around. They don’t give me anything,” Jonathan Schwartz, 45, callously whined to cops July 2, 2011, prosecutors said during opening statements before Justice Juan Merchan in Manhattan Supreme Court.
“I just went wild. It’s a terrible incident. It should never have happened.”
Schwartz was furious that his mother Barbara Fischler, 67, had recently restricted him to two packs of cigarettes a day and limited his soda intake, said Assistant District Attorney Steven Nuzzi.
Fischler had also begun monitoring Schwartz’s computer use after she caught him ordering Adderall from Pakistan.
Nuzzi played the 911 tapes for jurors three times and Schwartz’s voice is eerily emotionless. In the first call, he tells the 911 operator: “I killed my mother with a knife.” Then he hangs up and calls back two minutes later with a new story: “My mother committed suicide.”
Nuzzi said Schwartz crudely staged the crime scene to make it look like a suicide before cops arrived.
“He put the knife he used to kill his mother in her hand,” said Nuzzi. In Schwartz’s haste, he placed the knife in Fischler’s left hand — although she was right-handed.
“Surely the defendant knew what he had done and he knew what he had done was wrong,” Nuzzi said.
The defense countered that Schwartz, a diagnosed schizophrenic, murdered his mom during a psychotic break and should be found not guilty by reason of insanity.
“He didn’t know it was wrong what he was doing. It was because of his sickness, his illness, and that’s what the evidence is going to show beyond a reasonable doubt,” said defense lawyer Daniel Gotlin.
The murder of Fischler was the first in a series of tragedies for the family. Schwartz’s stepfather, Burton Fischler, squandered almost all of her $5.8 million fortune on risky short-sales, according to a civil lawsuit brought by her first husband.
Schwartz’s brother Kenneth committed suicide about six months after learning that his stepdad had wiped out the inheritance.
Fischler was the daughter of the late financial guru Norman Weiden and headed a charity named after him.