Victim tearfully recounts her terror over attack outside condo on Embarcadero.
Paneez Kosarian said she stood for more than 5 minutes outside the door of her building last month near San Francisco’s Embarcardero, listening to a stranger rant about the woman at the front desk being a robot. He told Kosarian he wanted to save her life and kill the woman inside the building, she testified Tuesday.
But when Kosarian, 27, tried to get past Austin James Vincent and into the Watermark condominium lobby in the earlymorning hours of Aug. 11, she said, he grabbed her, leading to a violent struggle that was captured on video and thrust into the media spotlight.
Kosarian broke down in tears Tuesday as she detailed the ordeal at a preliminary hearing in the case against Vincent, 25. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Teresa Caffese
ordered Vincent to be held on charges of false imprisonment, attempted residential burglary, criminal threats and battery, following the hearing. Vincent remains in jail without bail.
“He was saying that everyone else is a robot and he’s the only human left, and I should let him go inside because he was trying to kill the front desk lady,” Kosarian said.
Tuesday’s hearing came as the latest turn in a stillunfolding saga that prompted a public backlash against a previous judge’s decision to initially release Vincent, while also highlighting San Francisco’s challenges in dealing with mental illness, criminal justice, public safety and homelessness.
Vincent had no permanent address at the time of the incident.
Deputy Public Defender Saleem Belbahri and Kosarian had testy exchanges at times during a nearly hourlong crossexamination in court, where the attorney repeatedly asked her about small details of the attack. Caffese eventually intervened, granting the prosecution’s objections and admonishing Belbahri over the relevance of his questions.
“Obviously, I want to crossexamine the witness and be an advocate on behalf of Mr. Vincent, and it seemed like the court wasn’t allowing me to ask some
“He said, ‘Trust me. What can I do to earn your trust? I’ll kill anyone. I’ll kill the robot to earn your trust.’ ” Paneez Kosarian, testifying against Austin James Vincent
very key questions,” Belbahri said during a break in the hearing.
Assistant District Attorney Melody Bahai later played four 911 calls in which the woman working inside the building at 501 Beale St. pleaded for police to respond, because a man was threatening her. The last of the frustrated calls came after Kosarian broke free of her assailant and was crying inside the locked building.
The case — and the dramatic video footage — was seized on by neighbors along the Embarcadero who oppose a planned 200bed homeless Navigation Center. Sam Singer, whose public relations client Safe Embarcadero for All opposes the Navigation Center, helped distribute the harrowing video of the attack and create a media frenzy.
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Christine Van Aken released Vincent pretrial and ordered him into a diversion program that provides mental health services, sparking wide criticism, including from Mayor London Breed.
Vincent was later rearrested after being falsely accused of committing an attack in February, and Van Aken ordered him held without bail. At the time of the earlier attack, Vincent was in Southern California at a substance abuse treatment program.
But rather than release Vincent, as Van Aken had initially ordered, Judge Ross Moody chose to keep him in jail without bail, ruling him a public safety risk.
Tuesday’s hearing offered new details of the events on Aug. 11 and an emotional firstperson account. Kosarian said she’d been at a friend’s house that night and was walking home around 1:30 a.m. on a deserted street. As she approached her building, she spotted a man looking inside the glass doors.
Kosarian said she stood near Vincent for 5 to 6 minutes, “trying to understand why he was trying to get into the building.”
“He was angry and he was yelling, but he wasn’t angry towards me at that point,” she said. “He said, ‘Trust me. What can I do to earn your trust? I’ll kill anyone. I’ll kill the robot to earn your trust.’ ”
Kosarian said her husband was in their unit inside the building, and she told Vincent, “I’m just trying to go inside my lobby, so I can go home and go to sleep. Please let me inside.”
As she moved to get into the building, Vincent allegedly grabbed her, pulling at her waist and wrists as the woman inside the lobby ran to assist and fought alongside Kosarian to pull the door closed.
“Even when he was trying to go inside and he was hurting me, he said, ‘I want to save your life,’ ” Kosarian said.
Her injuries in the struggle included bruises on her legs, side, wrists and fingers, she said.
“I think at this point we do have some clarity about the sequence of events before this incident,” Belbahri said. “It’s clear Mr. Austin was having mental health issues at that time. The bottom line is Austin was in treatment prior to being taken into custody, and he was doing well in treatment.”
Vincent was initially charged with attempted robbery, but Caffese on Tuesday amended the charge to attempted residential burglary. The judge also added a charge for criminal threats, which the defendant allegedly made that morning toward the woman inside the building.
“We’re relieved the judge agreed there was no attempted robbery, and we’re going to continue to litigate the rest of the case,” said Valerie Ibarra, a spokeswoman for the public defender’s office.
Vincent is due back in court Oct. 1.