Eric Persaud, Queens man who burned girlfriend's face with hot iron, sentenced to 13 years in prison

Eric Persaud gets ready for his sentencing to 13 years in jail at Queens criminal court for burning his girlfriend's face with an iron and slashing her with a box cutter.

A Queens man who burned his girlfriend's face with a hot iron while their three children watched was sentenced to 13 years in prison Wednesday by a judge who called the gruesome attack "horrendous and sick."

Eric Persaud apologized to his girlfriend and urged her to be a good mother to their young children.

"My actions were cowardly, and there was no excuse for losing my cool," Persaud told Queens Supreme Court Justice Gregory Lasak, his voice trembling.

Lasak scolded Persaud for forcing the woman to turn up the heat on the iron so he could permanently scar her for calling the cops over an earlier attack.

"Your actions are some of the worst I've seen a man do to a woman," Lasak told Persaud. "The actions that you took on that day were horrendous and sick."

Prosecutors say Persaud, 36, flew into a rage on April 30, 2009, because he was upset that she'd called 911 a week before when he smashed her phone and computer. He promised to kill her if she called the cops again.

When the woman refused to burn herself with the iron, Persaud stuck a towel in her mouth and burned her on both cheeks while forcing her to turn up the heat.

When that wasn't enough, he slashed her in the face with a razor blade, prosecutors say.

The woman spent 11 days in the hospital.

Persaud called the woman hundreds of times from Rikers Island, begging her not to testify against him. Queens prosecutors retrieved recordings of the phone calls and planned to use them against Persaud if he'd gone to trial.

Persaud pleaded guilty to an assault charge last month




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H.S. student Zhanna Smsarian charged after she splashed classmate with acid to 'burn her eyes out'

Zhanna Smsarian, 16, leaves Brooklyn Criminal Court after her arraignment for allegedly throwing acid on her classmate during chemistry class.

A Brooklyn teen, irate over a classmate's play for a mutual male friend, tried to blind the girl by splashing her with acid during chemistry class, authorities said Thursday.

Sobbing suspect Zhanna Smsarian, 16, was freed Thursday on $7,500 bail for the attack one day earlier on Albina Eshimbaeva, 15, in the first-floor lab at Fort Hamilton High School.

The suspect told a police officer she "was trying to burn Eshimbaeva's eyes out," according to court documents.

The pair were friends before their falling out over a 22-year-old Staten Island man who had briefly dated Eshimbaeva.

The older man said they went out for a week before breaking up - and then the trouble began.

"[Eshimbaeva] was stalking me," said the Egyptian-American man. The spurned teen also mistook his friendship with Smsarian as romance, the man said, creating further tension.

The man told his woes to Smsarian, who assured him that she would handle things.

"I told her to do what she had to do, but I didn't expect her to throw acid," said the man, whose name is Mohammad.

Doctors who treated Eshimbaeva said the teen could have been blinded. Instead, she only suffered skin irritation because the diluted solution contained just 10% acid, sources said.

After Smsarian emptied the acidic bottle on her adversary just before the bell rang, a teacher quickly flushed Eshimbaeva with water.

She was rushed to the burn unit at Staten Island University Hospital and was later released.

"They made a fake fire drill, and got everybody out of the school," said student Mohammad Elashry, 15. "They took us out the sides. Then the cops came in, and took her out the front."

Smsarian, a volleyball player for the school team, told a police officer she "was trying to burn Eshimbaeva's eyes out," according to court documents.

The tall teen, an ROTC member still wearing her fatigues, was arraigned in Brooklyn Criminal Court for attempted assault and a slew of other charges.

"She's never been in any problems before," her lawyer Igor Vaysberg told the judge. "She's an honor roll student with excellent grades."

Her parents, Vaysberg said, were "destroyed."

A Department of Education spokeswoman said the school has also taken disciplinary action against Smsarian.

oyaniv@nydailynews.com

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