NYPD psychologist charged in husband's shooting
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — A New York Police Department psychologist was ordered to stay away from her husband and young daughters Friday after she was charged with attempted murder — accused of shooting her husband last year as he slept in their Yonkers home.
The arrest of 46-year-old Emily Dearden came a week after The Journal News reported that Kenneth Dearden, a prominent developer and president of the Yonkers Downtown/Waterfront Business Improvement District, had sued his wife, accusing her of trying to kill him so she could get out of their marriage and pursue a relationship with a Texas executive with whom she had been having an affair.
Emily Dearden surrendered to Yonkers detectives Friday morning and was arraigned before City Court Judge Robert Cerrato, who set bail at $150,000. At the request of Assistant District Attorney Amy Puerto, Cerrato issued an order of protection barring Emily Dearden from any contact with her family.
Dearden did not enter a plea. She posted bail and left the court with her lawyer and a private investigator shortly after 1 p.m. She offered no comment, but Bergman called the charges "baseless," adding that Dearden would fight them "with every fiber of her body."
Dearden's lawyer, Paul Bergman, said his client would seek visitation with her children, ages 11 and 14, and deserved to be with them.
"She's a wonderful mother," the Bergman said.
Emily Dearden was hired as a psychologist with the NYPD in 2002. In 2009, she was an adjunct professor for one semester at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The NYPD said Friday that she was suspended from her position with the department after her arrest.
Kenneth Dearden, 47, was shot in the back of the head at about 4 a.m. on Nov. 14, 2013, in the couple's bed.
He claimed in his lawsuit that he awoke to "searing pain in his jaw" and thought he was having a heart attack or stroke before seeing the bloody bedsheets. He thought he saw his wife in the doorway but then found her lying on the floor downstairs. She claimed to have been hit in the head by an intruder.
But Dearden said he had set the alarm hours earlier and that it had been disarmed just before the shooting with a code only he and his wife knew.
Mitchell Schuster, his lawyer, said Friday his client has been cooperating with detectives and prosecutors since the shooting.
"We were always confident the authorities would go through the process and take the steps necessary to ensure an arrest," Schuster said. "We're happy with the results so far."
Last week, Bergman denied the allegations, saying Kenneth Dearden was retaliating because his wife had filed for divorce in August. Bergman called the lawsuit a "desperate and baseless attack" and said it contradicted Kenneth Dearden's statements to police just after the shooting.
Dearden acknowledged in the lawsuit that he initially told police there had been an intruder. That prompted police sources at the time to attribute the shooting to a domestic dispute. They were skeptical of the couple's account because there was no sign of forced entry and the family's Rottweiler, known on the block as a barker, had been silent during the incident.
Kenneth Dearden claimed that the Rottweiler always slept in their bedroom. But that morning it was in their daughter's room and she told him her mother had put it there, according to the lawsuit.
The bullet that lodged in his cheek was too badly damaged for ballistics tests to be conclusive, according to the lawsuit. But Kenneth Dearden suggested it was consistent with one of two derringers Emily Dearden had received as a gift from her parents. The antiques were among four guns police recovered from the basement after the shooting, Dearden said in the lawsuit.
According to her husband's lawsuit, Emily Dearden had been having an on-again, off-again affair with Warren David Roudebush since at least 2011. Roudebush, who is known by his middle name, is senior vice president of sales for Oxygen-Finance Americas. He has not returned several messages over the past week.
Kenneth Dearden suggested that Roudebush was pressuring his wife to end her marriage so the two could be together.
Dearden faces a minimum of five years and up to 25 years if convicted of second-degree attempted murder.
Contributing: Greg Shillinglaw of The Journal News