Is there any low too low for sports likers to sink to? Patriots fan in a video that went viral after Sunday’s game is a Long Island bartender who once spent time behind bars for fatally knifing a teen. Kurt Paschke, 38, was convicted of criminally negligent homicide and sentenced to nearly four years in prison for killing Henri Ferrer, 17, of Bay Shore during a fight outside a Sayville pizzeria in 1992. Paschke, who was 17 at the time, was originally charged with murder but ultimately convicted of the lesser charge. In a bizarre twist, he became best pals with Marty Tankleff behind bars, according to a tome on Tankleff’s own infamous crime. Tankleff was convicted in the brutal 1988 killing of his wealthy parents and then freed after his sentence was overturned in 2008. “I am deeply sorry,” Paschke said at the time of his own sentencing in 1995. “I can honestly say I never sought the confrontation, but when it came, I did what I had to do.” Paschke’s excuse is eerily similar to the defense put forward by his family and friends nearly 20 years later regarding his punch-out of the woman at MetLife Stadium. “He didn’t deliberately hit the girl, he was simply being defensive,’’ said Paschke’s mom, Colleen, to The Post on Monday. The mother, 62, said her son, a diehard lifelong Jets fan, took her to the game as a special treat because she’s a breast-cancer survivor and it’s Breast Cancer Awareness month. “There was a group of Patriots fans antagonizing our friends the whole game … They were drunk and out of control,’’ Colleen Paschke said. “Our friends were in the same row and, for instance, they were even making fun of a girl because she just gotten braces. “As my son and I were leaving, the group came charging from behind and said ‘Let’s get them,’ ” she said. “They push through us to get to his friends and start throwing punches. My son wanted to break it up. “Then the girl [on the video] was throwing three punches at my son … and with that, my son is just trying to protect himself and me.’’ That’s when the burly Paschke hit the woman with a right cross that snapped her head back. Sources have identified the woman as Jaclyn Nugent. When The Post visited the Boston-area address of a 26-year-old woman by that name, a man who identified himself as her brother said the family had only just learned of the incident before adding “Go screw!” and declining further comment. “One girl was putting her middle finger in face, saying, ‘F— you!’ to me,’’ Paschke’s mom said. “The girl who was bleeding took the blood and threw it in my face.” Paschke’s dad, Kurt, a 62-year-old retired Suffolk County police officer, said, “They’re making him out to be animal. He’s very upset about this.’’ Paschke, who lives across the street from his parents, wasn’t home Monday night. Paschke, who was wearing a Wayne Chrebet No. 80 jersey at the time of the incident, and a friend were quizzed twice by New Jersey state cops. As of Monday evening, Paschke had not been placed under arrest. Cops also are planning to interview Nugent, sources said. “He’s a great guy. He’s not violent like that,” said Ward Roser, a Paschke family friend. But the dad of his previous victim, Ferrer, told The Post that Paschke was a ticking time bomb. “I wrote the judge a letter that this guy is going to kill again,” said Robert Ferrer, 80. “He killed for no reason. He went out of his way to get a knife to stab my son. My son was involved in a fist fight, and he went out to get a knife and stabbed my son. They were the same age. They were the same size. He had no business killing my son.” Antoine Ferrer, the victim’s brother, added, “[The punched female Patriots fan] should be thanking her lucky stars — she’s alive, my brother is not.” According to the 2008 book “A Criminal Injustice: A True Crime, a False Confession, and the Fight to Free Marty Tankleff,” Paschke simply fell in with the wrong crowd, not realizing they were neo-Nazis, before the stabbing. When he tried to break free from the group, they jumped him one night,and the man he killed, a skinhead, fingered him as he lay dying, the book said. Paschke’s dad later became a champion of Tankleff, based on Tankleff’s prison friendship with his son in jail, according to the book. Paschke’s trial lawyer was Thomas Spota, who is now the Suffolk County DA.
Posted on: Tue, 22 Oct 2013 14:43:48 +0000