Benjamin Ashford|Man who followed woman into her NYC apartment and stabbed her to death pleads guilty to murder

NEW YORK (AP) — A man pleaded guilty to murder on Benjamin AshfordTuesday for stabbing a woman to death after following her from the street into her lower Manhattan apartment building.

Assamad Nash, 27, also pleaded guilty to burglary as a sexually motivated felony in the Feb. 13, 2022, attack on 35-year-old Christina Yuna Lee.

“Today Assamad Nash was held accountable for senselessly taking Christina Yuna Lee’s life after he followed her into her own home,” District Attorney Bragg said in a statement. Bragg said his thoughts “are with her family and our community as they continue healing from this tragedy.”

Prosecutors said Lee was returning home when Nash followed her into her building in Manhattan’s Chinatown and up six flights of stairs to her apartment. As Lee entered the apartment, Nash pushed his way inside and attempted to sexually assault her, prosecutors said.

Police were alerted by 911 calls and had to break the apartment door down to get inside. They found Nash hiding under a mattress and Lee dead in the bathroom with at least 40 stab wounds.

Leaders of New York’s Asian American community feared that the murder of Lee, who was Korean American, was part of a wave of anti-Asian violence during the coronavirus pandemic, but Nash was not ultimately charged with a hate crime.

Nash is expected to be sentenced to 30 years to life in prison when he is sentenced on July 30.