Man Pleads Guilty for Nearly Decapitating Girlfriend

An abusive public relations rep who nearly decapitated his girlfriend on the lower East Side pleaded guilty Monday. Raul Barrera, 34, who was a publicist for Propaganda NY and Coleman Entertainment Group, attacked former Hunter College student Sarah Coit, 23, last year during a fight in their fashionable Clinton St. apartment.

He told cops that she had lunged at him with a knife, which then dropped to the floor. He then stabbed her 24 times, cutting her face repeatedly, police said. “He didn't want her to leave and he didn't want her to be beautiful for anyone else,” a source told the Daily News. “It was pure anger.”

After the attack, Barrera, who had been arrested before for assault, coldly changed his clothes and fled to Penn Station to make his getaway.

On the way, he called his father, who persuaded him to turn himself in. "She is bad and that's why I'm here to turn myself in," he told cops at the time. He had sliced Coit across the mouth and jaw with such force that one of the tips of the blades broke, cops said.

Neighbors, who said the couple fought constantly, heard blood-curdling screams coming from the apartment on the night of her murder. Coit, who worked as a sales rep for Lacoste, was the only daughter of Lynde Coit, a prominent financial adviser and his wife, Anne Taylor, neighbors said.

Barrera’s trial was set to start in three days, and the plea deal did not specify a sentence length, officials said.

His lawyer, Paul Feinman, will argue for the minimum sentence of 15 years at a hearing on Friday.
He faces 25 years to life.