New York Woman Left Paralyzed After Being Choked By Long-Time Boyfriend

A man in Bronx, New York, was jailed for choking his long-time girlfriend, leaving her paralyzed. A plea by the accused's lawyer to get him out of jail due to coronavirus scare was rejected by the judge recently.

The accused, identified as 57-year-old, Armando Cruz, allegedly choked and paralyzed his 49-year-old girlfriend, identified as Julissa Henriquez, due to what is suspected to be an act committed out of jealousy.

On Feb.2, officers responded to an apartment shared by Cruz and Henriquez after receiving a call from the accused saying that his girlfriend was found unconscious. The responding officers found the woman lying unconscious on the floor. Cruz told the officers that he found her lying unconscious when he came out of another room.

Henriquez was rushed to the nearby Jacobi Medical Center where she gained consciousness and apparently wrote down on a paper what actually happened to her in the apartment.

An argument, goaded by Cruz’s irrational jealousy the reason for which is unclear, heated up resulting in him getting physical. He allegedly grabbed her from behind and threw her to the floor. He then sat on her back before jerking her neck backward that fractured the vertebrae in her neck damaging her windpipe.

Henriquez immediately lost consciousness. When she regained it a few moments later and tried moving out of the scene, she realized that she couldn’t move her limbs or call out for help as she was not able to talk. This made it easier for Cruz as Henriquez was unable to speak, he was able to narrate his own version of the story to the officers.

But little did he know that a neighbor who heard the couple arguing had called 911 too. Cruz was arrested on Feb. 13, 11 days after the attack, for attempted murder, assault and strangulation.

Henriquez underwent surgery to fuse her vertebrae but her long-term prognosis is not clear.

“She may never walk again,” a law enforcement source said. “That’’s how bad he hurt her.”

Cruz admitted to the assault in a videotaped statement but he bluntly denied that the injuries were his fault claiming that what he did to her was just a "bear hug." Cruz's bond was set at $125,000 and he was being held on Rikers Island.