An unhinged homeless man accused of slashing a young costume designer during an unprovoked Soho street attack — cutting her throat with a broken bottle so deeply her muscles and veins were exposed — once did prison time for attempted murder, Manhattan prosecutors revealed Wednesday.
“I’m going to kill a b—-!” Muslim Brunson screamed during Monday’s bottle attack, prosecutors said.
Brunson allegedly slashed 25-year-old Megan “Mae” Berg in the throat with the jagged broken bottle so deeply that “you could see muscle tissue” during the caught-on-camera attack, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Siobhan Carty said.
Medics rushed Berg to Bellevue Hospital, where she needed “life saving surgery” and remains on a ventilator at the hospital’s intensive care unit.
Berg’s wound needed between 30 or 40 stitches to close, prosecutors said.
Brunson’s out-of-state criminal history came to light as a judge ordered him held without bail during his arraignment on attempted murder, assault, and attempted assault charges for the gruesome Monday afternoon slashing.
“He is a definite flight risk,” Carty told Judge Beverly Tatham, adding that the ex-con has ties to Maryland, New Jersey, and North Carolina and has a “demonstrated contempt for law enforcement.”
In 2002, Brunson, 46, served eight years for a Baltimore attempted murder and arson conviction, Carty said.
On Monday afternoon, Brunson allegedly threw a glass bottle at a 29-year-old woman near the corner of Broome and Wooster Sts. The bottle smashed against the back of the woman’s head.
“I’m going to kill a b—h!” Brunson was heard screaming as he picked up the broken bottle and chased the 29-year-old woman down the block, prosecutors charge. During the chase, he stopped mid course and zeroed in on Berg, who was scouting out boutique shops for her boss when she was attacked, authorities say.
Brunson, who was wearing an NYPD hoodie, was captured about six blocks away. He admitted to the attack and identified Berg as the second woman he attacked, prosecutors say.
He seemed agitated and threatened a witness who helped police identify him as the slasher, prosecutors said.
Defense attorney Mildred Morillo of NYC Defenders said she had spoken to both Brunson and his mother and said the slashing suspect was in the middle of a mental health crisis.
It has been repeatedly documented by police and prosecutors that Brunson hears voices that order him to harm people.
“It is clear that he is suffering a mental health crisis,” Morillo said, comparing Brunson’s condition to someone suffering the flu. “No one ever blames someone with a stomach virus for vomiting.”
Tatham ordered Brunson to undergo a psychiatric exam.
In New York, Brunson has five prior arrests dating back to 2019, four of them for assault, police said.
In September 2019, he pushed a 13-year-old male passenger out of a train car and onto the platform at the Van Siclen Ave. subway station in Brownsville, Brooklyn, after snatching the teen’s cell phone, sources said.
Bail was set in that case but Brunson was later released without bail and the case was moved to mental health court.
After his release, Brunson missed at least one court date and so a warrant was issued. He was arrested on the warrant and jailed from Feb. 2 to July 22, 2021, when he was convicted of robbery after pleading in mental health court and released pending sentencing.
While awaiting sentencing, Brunson committed a felony assault, slamming an off-duty NYPD civilian employee’s head into a subway pole aboard a Brooklyn-bound No. 4 train near the Fulton St. station on July 4, 2022, fracturing the victim’s cheekbone and an orbital bone, sources said.
The two cases were wrapped into one conviction and Brunson was sentenced to eight months in prison for both crimes, according to court records.
He’s been free since February 2023 and told police upon his arrest Monday that he’d only been in the city for the last 60 days, prosecutors said.
