‘Ruthless and calculating con-artist’ jailed for trying to poison lookalike with cheesecake
A ‘ruthless and calculating’ woman has been jailed for 21 years for trying to kill her friend in the US with a poisoned cheesecake to steal her identity.
Viktoria Nasyrova was found guilty of attempted murder by a New York jury in February.
The 47-year-old took the sedative-laced dessert to Olga Tsvyk’s New York City home during an eyelash appointment in August 2016.
Nasyrova is said to have eaten two pieces of the cheesecake before offering the third piece to the 35-year-old beautician.
Ms Tsyvk, who survived the incident, was found in a coma.
Prosecutors said Nasyrova had scattered pills around Ms Tsyvk to make it look like a suicide, before taking her passport and valuables.
The cheesecake was later found to contain a potent sedative called phenazepam.
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Nasyrova was arrested after her DNA was found on the box.
The trial was told the two women look similar, with dark hair and similar skin tones.
Nasyrova was sentenced on Wednesday.
“A ruthless and calculating con artist is going to prison for a long time for trying to murder her way to personal profit and gain,” Queens district attorney Melinda Katz said in a statement.
Nasyrova’s lawyer, Jose Nieves, said they would be appealing against the conviction and sentence.
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Before her arrest, Nasyrova was also on Interpol’s red list after being accused of fleeing Russia for killing her neighbour in 2014.
She was allegedly caught on CCTV with the woman’s body in the passenger seat of her car.
Nasyrova denied that allegation in a 2017 interview with CBS and claimed the images were fake and that she was framed by police.
She also told the New York Post she had worked as a dominatrix in New York – and suggested the cheesecake incident was food poisoning.
