Stab gal is cut a break

A MANHATTAN judge showed leniency Thursday in sentencing a young woman convicted of stabbing her boyfriend in the chest, handing down a term slightly above the minimum because she was a victim of domestic violence.

State Supreme Court Justice Marcy Kahn gave Yekaterina Pusepa, a 23-year-old originally from Latvia, a term of 81/ years in pris

2 on. Prosecutors had urged Kahn to give Pusepa 15 years for jabbing a kitchen knife into the chest of Alex Katsnelson — piercing a lung and nicking his heart — during a violent quarrel in his Financial District apartment in May 2012.

But Kahn opted for a sentence closer to the seven-year minimum, taking into account that the young couple’s relationship was marred by violence and drug abuse.

In court, Pusepa pleaded with Kahn “for some leniency,” insisting that Katsnelson punched her in the head, forcing her to defend herself. “I never intended to kill him,” she said. “It was a fight that escalated to the point where I had to defend myself.”

Kahn said her sentence accounted for the fact that Katsnelson — who survived the stabbing — had pushed Pusepa down a flight of stairs in February 2012 and broke her finger in a fight two months later. However, the judge said she was siding with the jury in rejecting Pusepa’s claim that the stabbing was purely an act of self-defense.

“The wounds inflicted were grave and life-threatening, and even under your version of events, this went beyond any notion of self-defense,” Kahn told the defendant.