
Suspect is arrested in grisly killing of tech CEO Fahim Saleh - jbegley
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/17/nyregion/fahim-saleh-murder-arrest-tyrese-devon-haspil.html
======
aikinai
> Detectives believe that the motive for the killing stemmed from Mr. Saleh
> having discovered that the assistant had stolen tens of thousands of dollars
> from him, despite the fact that Mr. Saleh had not reported the man and had
> set up what amounted to a repayment plan for him to return the money, one of
> the officials said.

Amazing how far this is from all the early speculation. Also incredibly sad.

~~~
zajd
It's not really amazing, HN is incredibly xenophobic, just look at literally
any thread that happens to mention China, even tangentially. I guess that's
what happens when the majority of the userbase is well off Americans.

~~~
dang
Last I ran the numbers, 50% of HN users were in the US. A lot of those are not
Americans, since many HN users have come to the US from other countries.
Moreover, a lot of the American userbase on HN are not "well off". So your
assumption is far from correct.

What HN certainly is, demographically, is majority Western. What you're seeing
on China-related topics is the growing rift between China and the West, the
same trend that shows up in Western media and no doubt Chinese media as well.
I spend a lot of moderation time and energy arguing for understanding about
this. But there's no way we can expect HN to be immune from macro social and
geopolitical trends.

There's no reason to believe that "HN is incredibly xenophobic" except insofar
as human beings in general may be.

~~~
jacquesm
> There's no reason to believe that HN is "incredibly xenophobic" except
> insofar as human beings in general may be.

And that's likely the case so in a way the GP was right. HN is rapidly
approaching being large enough to represent a fair cross section of the
communities it is active in, with the note that it skews wealthy, educated and
tech oriented. Whether that slice of the population is more or less xenophobic
as a rule is an open question. I fear for the answer.

~~~
mr_toad
> xenophobic

Disliking the actions of the CCP doesn’t mean people are xenophobic any more
than disliking Trump makes someone anti-American.

------
colmvp
If what is reported is true, then that is really sad.

Saleh's assistant Tyrese Haspil stole tens of thousands of dollars from him
and instead of reporting him, he instead created a payment plan to be repaid.

Saleh showed compassion and that may have been a reason why he ended up dying
in the end.

~~~
injb
> Saleh showed compassion and that may have been a reason why he ended up
> dying in the end.

Yes, that's exactly what happened.

Lesson: report the crime to the police first. If you want to show compassion
and keep the law out of your business, you can always refuse to cooperate with
the investigation later, and they'll be obliged to drop the charges. But the
perpetrator will know that they'll be at the top of the list if anything
happens to you.

~~~
kazagistar
You can be held in contempt and face jail time for not participating in an
investigation. The fifth only applies to self incrimiation, not to
incriminating others.

Instead, just tell your friends and family.

~~~
mcny
> You can be held in contempt and face jail time for not participating in an
> investigation.

I anal but isn’t that a pretty slippery slope? Like someone rapes me or tries
to kill me and the law will throw me in prison for refusing to relive those
moments?

Also I’m pretty sure jstor didn’t want to press charges but the overzealous
prosecutors did horrible things to Aaron Swartz anyways.

~~~
tehwebguy
It's awful but it's real.

The district attorney for New Orleans, Leon Cannizzaro, has come under fire
for not only issuing "fake subpoenas" that threaten jail time, he's actually
arrested _the victims_ and kept them incarcerated until trial in some cases.

He's still DA there, somehow.

~~~
jedberg
It's important to note that the state of Louisiana uses a completely different
system of law than the rest of the United States, based off the French civil
code.

It gives judges and prosecutors a lot of leeway in how they handle cases.

------
canada_dry
> Police identified Haspil through “anti-felon identification cards that were
> spewed like confetti in Saleh’s apartment,” NBC New York reported.

Can someone explain what this is? I assumed the guy would quickly be suspect
#1 once they combed through Saleh's computer and found discussions about the
stolen money. What's this "anti-felon identification cards" reference about?

~~~
williamscales
[https://www.mentalfloss.com/uk/law/31712/why-is-there-
confet...](https://www.mentalfloss.com/uk/law/31712/why-is-there-confetti-in-
so-many-taser-guns)

It turns out Tasers spew many little tags with unique identifiers on them when
fired.

~~~
runawaybottle
What happens if you use someone else’s taser and make them a suspect in a
murder case?

~~~
c22
Then the investigation gets more complicated.

------
pdevr
The alleged killer won first place (along with another person) for website
design in a Future Business Leaders of America competition held in Rochester.
[1]

Stunning, sad and macabre. Nothing else to say.

[1]
[http://www.vschsd.org/News/Story.aspx?id=35361](http://www.vschsd.org/News/Story.aspx?id=35361)

------
sowellecho
I checked the top articles to see if there is a photo of the suspect. And then
I did find one eventually, after a few more searches.

The coverage of this story reminds me of this tweet:

[https://twitter.com/ComicDaveSmith/status/127987036677366169...](https://twitter.com/ComicDaveSmith/status/1279870366773661696)

~~~
anonymous38529
The DailyMail published his photo, and also, even better, doesn't have a
paywall:

> [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8534097/Murdered-
> Ne...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8534097/Murdered-New-York-
> tech-entrepreneurs-personal-assistant-arrested.html)

The NYT wouldn't have hesitated to publish Tyrese's photo had he been white
and Fahim had been black. Probably their respective races would have even been
mentioned in the headline.

~~~
erulabs
You’re being downvoted because this is unhelpful speculation which adds
nothing to the discussion - be it true or untrue. If the response to what you
say is “OK...”, what you have said is not terribly interesting.

~~~
summitsummit
how do you downvote on here?

~~~
mkl
You need more than 500 karma: [https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-
undocumented](https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented)

------
Jeremy1026
Holy shit, this one hits closer to home. I worked for Fahim about 10 years
ago. He was a pretty cool guy who was full of ideas. He will be missed.

------
sradman
Also:

> Detectives believe that the killer, dressed in a black three-piece suit,
> wearing a black mask and carrying a duffel bag, followed Mr. Saleh off an
> elevator in his building and into his apartment, a law enforcement official
> said. He used a Taser to immobilize Mr. Saleh and then stabbed him to death.

It appears the security of the elevator opening directly into the victim's
apartment and the COVID-19 crisis (the suspect was wearing a black mask) both
played a role.

~~~
jb775
And did the guy really think he wouldn't be recognized just bc of the mask?
Obviously detectives are going to have co-workers look over surveillance
videos...they'd probably be able to identify the "man in the suit" pretty
quickly

~~~
runawaybottle
An understated fact of most criminals is they are notoriously dumb. I mean,
think about it, you begin stealing money, you think you can away with, then
you think you can get away with invasion, murder, and disposal of the body.
You really have to be dumb to even embark on this adventure.

~~~
Gibbon1
Criminals are almost by definition dumb. Because smart ones quickly rise to
the level where they pass for respectable business people.

------
jl2718
1\. Why? Money. Works almost always. 2. Scary how little you can be killed
for. 3. Scary how big of a risk to their own life people are willing to take
for money. 4. Is it really money? Criminals are usually spendthrifts. All that
stuff really doesn’t improve life much. Seems like status signals must be the
real insatiable desire. 5. Rethinking, this seems like the work of a drug
addict. The person has reasonable executive capacity (dopamine drive), but
lacks empathy for others or their own future.

~~~
GaryNumanVevo
The article mentions the stolen money was used to pay off family debts. He
allegedly murdered Mr. Saleh after he was caught and fired.

~~~
renewiltord
Very confusing to me when I read these comments. Here's the article's
reference to debts:

> _One of the officials said Mr. Saleh had paid Mr. Haspil so well that he had
> been able to pay off the debts of several family members._

The train of thought that takes that to the comment

> _The article mentions the stolen money was used to pay off family debts. He
> allegedly murdered Mr. Saleh after he was caught and fired._

must make sense in some degree to the comment author

Interesting that human information copying is subject to such large
transcription errors over such a short period of time.

~~~
savrajsingh
Funny that the dna that gives us these abilities is copied almost perfectly in
comparison

------
Firebrand
> Detectives believe that the motive for the killing stemmed from Mr. Saleh
> having discovered that the assistant had stolen tens of thousands of dollars
> from him, despite the fact that Mr. Saleh had not reported the man and had
> set up what amounted to a repayment plan for him to return the money, one of
> the officials said.

Wow, that’s really sad.

------
kindatrue
Tidbit from the article: He founded PrankDial.com and it's a $10M business.

I'd never heard of it. Wow... $10M run rate for a website that sends prank
calls to others? Like "Chinese Apology" "Indian Tech Support"? Talk about a
site that should be cancelled:
[https://www.prankdial.com/?category=services](https://www.prankdial.com/?category=services)

------
cafard
Some years ago in Bethesda, Maryland, the manager of a Lululemon store was
murdered by her assistant after she confronted the woman about money gone
missing. The assistant gave herself some minor injuries and tried to sell the
police a story of a man breaking in and attacking them. The story fell apart
pretty quickly.

~~~
runawaybottle
[https://youtu.be/ABugiItaz7Y](https://youtu.be/ABugiItaz7Y)

Good podcast on it if anyone cares.

------
leephillips
I don’t understand the second-degree murder charge. Surely this was
premeditated and planned, wasn’t it?

~~~
voxic11
Its possible they only have hard evidence of second-degree murder at this
stage, so rather than risk the guy being released due to lack of probable
cause for first degree murder they can just bring a charge with fewer elements
to prove and then add first degree murder later when they have gone over the
evidence more.

After all, maybe he didn't originally intend to kill the guy, he did start by
tasing him.

~~~
SilasX
He brought an electric saw though, right?

~~~
mlyle
He bought it and cleaning products the day after.

------
catacombs
This sounds like something Patrick Bateman, from American Psycho, would do.
However, in the book/movie, he doesn't get caught and didn't do this act for
financial reasons.

~~~
cvhashim
Wasn’t it all in his imagination? I haven’t seen that movie in years but he
might have been developing schizophrenia.

~~~
gowld
It was intentionally ambiguous. It's a work of fiction, anyway, so all of it
is in the imagination.

------
m3kw9
A seemingly normal person goes and dismember his colleague after things
doesn’t go his way when he when in for a scam. Why is it not 1st degree
murder?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Why is it not 1st degree murder?

Because with initial charges, when you've got pretty solid probable cause for
intent (2nd degree), there's no reason to take any risk at the probable cause
hearing with premeditation (1st degree); if you've got evidence that you think
can get a conviction on that as you investigate, upgrading charges is easy.

~~~
bufferoverflow
How in the world is it not premeditated??? He went to his place. It's not like
he randomly stumbled into Fahim and killed him on the spot.

~~~
henryfjordan
You have to prove the accused went there with the intention to kill. He could
have gone with the intention to talk about their debt situation, but then saw
the victim and went red with rage or something like that.

It's really, really hard to get prove exactly what someone was thinking. You
need a very concrete piece of evidence that proves intent, just going
somewhere is not going to be enough.

~~~
omarchowdhury
> just going somewhere is not going to be enough.

How about going there completely disguised, and pretending to go to a
different floor in the building than Fahim? If he went there to talk to him,
he wouldn't press a button in the elevator for a different apartment.

~~~
huebnerob
Assault? Robbery? He'd disguise himself to commit basically any criminal act
agains Fahim, not just murder.

Even weapons being brought could have been intended for threatening future
violence.

It's incredibly hard to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, what someone's mindset
is at any given time.

------
jliptzin
This is chilling considering I am currently looking for a personal assistant!

~~~
w0mbat
David Spade's personal assistant famously attacked him with a stun gun, so be
careful! Normally, though, the story is the reverse: a celeb mis-treated their
personal assistant and is now being sued.

~~~
geoelectric
Or gets totally thrown under the bus by hostile testimony, like is happening
to Amber Heard right now in the Heard/Depp trial. Her PA poked a bunch of
holes in Heard's story after AH tried to publicly claim a personal tragedy of
the PA's as her own for sympathy and lost all of the PA's goodwill.

Don't screw with the person who knows your whole life in and out, I guess.

------
camjohnson26
This is utterly tragic. Not sure that there’s a lesson to be learned other
than life is short and people can be unpredictable. Must be so hard for his
sister and family.

~~~
RobRivera
My takeaway is if I discover a crime being committed by someone I don't know
well, report and cut all contact. Upgrade Security. Be alert. This whole
situation is a tragedy, and his willingness to impart reason with the
unreasonable cost him his life.

------
Operyl
> he built an app called PrankDial that allowed users to send prerecorded
> prank calls

Oh wow .. I remember that site. Man, this entire situation just stinks :(.

------
neonate
[https://archive.is/4gcZO](https://archive.is/4gcZO)

------
jb775
There are cameras everywhere nowadays. I don't understand how someone thinks
they can realistically get away with something like this, especially in the
middle of NYC in broad daylight.

~~~
Axsuul
Do cameras actually matter when it's socially acceptable now to wear a mask?

------
cvhashim
This is sad. I’m thinking the assistant was planning on sawing the ceo up and
dump him in a river. Which doesn’t make sense. He would be a suspect on the
list if Saleh had disapeared. Unless he planned to make out like a bandit into
a country that doesn’t extradite criminals.

~~~
NearAP
I guess the theory would be that - if the body was never discovered, the
police wouldn't be able to prove a crime occurred. They would simply have
questioned a couple of people and if none of them 'broke', they would have
been let go

------
john-radio
That's good. The NY Times did not help this situation, or the hundreds of
other potential situations that may or may not evolve in the future, with
their breathless coverage of this "likely the work of a professional" job.

------
interesting_att
Remember this is an ALLEGATION.

I knew Fahim personally. I know people who spoke to him the day of about this
very issue, so I have some information that most people don't. I absolutely do
not believe this kid did it.

Fahim was well liked in Nigeria but he was disrupting a dangerous market.

~~~
dahfizz
Is there anything you can share?

Tyrese had recently purchased and signed for the taser that was used in the
attack. He was at home depot buying cleaning supplies right after the murder.
That's some very significant evidence.

~~~
adventured
All of that combined with the monetary connection, it's rather extraordinarily
strong evidence.

------
HelpEveryone
Any startups that are protecting people from being murdered? What type of
device would be able to sound an alarm and save his life?

------
booleandilemma
So much for it being “a professional job”.

It just makes our law enforcement people look incompetent.

------
blueprint
can we please stop linking nytimes. their paywall doesn't even render
properly.

~~~
coolspot
[https://archive.is/D1sbz](https://archive.is/D1sbz)

------
anonymous38529
Non-paywalled article:

> [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8534097/Murdered-
> Ne...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8534097/Murdered-New-York-
> tech-entrepreneurs-personal-assistant-arrested.html)

------
eggspurt
Nigerian media have more info about the suspect
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23871447](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23871447)

~~~
xtracto
You are linking to your own submitted HN story linking to an article?

Somehow this feels dirty & cheap.

[https://pageone.ng/2020/07/17/breaking-here-is-the-face-
of-t...](https://pageone.ng/2020/07/17/breaking-here-is-the-face-of-tyrese-
devon-haspil-the-suspected-killer-of-fahim-saleh/)

~~~
eggspurt
To the contrary, it’s a service to the community to link other versions of the
same story with the right context, facilitating discussion.

Also, you're actively suppressing African news sources, so I question your
bias?

------
marta_morena_25
This sounds like a good old coverup lol. Seriously? The assistant? Because he
stole tens of thousands of dollars and got a payment plan setup for it? And
then what, he goes and uses an electric saw to dismember the body? Right.
That's probably how it happened.

It's much more likely that the assistant was either blackmailed or paid a much
larger amount by a 3rd party to carry this out, potentially stealing the money
from him to provide an alternative motive. The way the crime was carried out
might be some signature card that people involved will recognized and see as a
warning.

~~~
renewiltord
Oh yeah, definitely. All according to keikaku.

In fact, what's really likely is that _that_ 3rd party is being manipulated by
lizard overlords to make us believe there are still humans with agency in the
world when actually they have brainwave modifiers that override everything we
want to do.

With Neuralink, I won't even be able to say these seditious things. Celebrate
your last few moments of free will!

~~~
steffan
Nonsense! The lizard overlords are only pawns in a much larger scheme

------
xwdv
Pay. Your. Fucking. Debts.

------
lambda_dn
I guess the lesson here is do background checks when hiring a PA.

~~~
RspecMAuthortah
Or don't hire a 21 yr old with questionable background as your chief of staff
dealing with hundreds of thousands of dollars.

~~~
whymauri
What is their questionable background?

~~~
RspecMAuthortah
They supposedly had mental health problems and had trouble with law
enforcements.

------
christiansakai
Out of topic. When I met my (now) wife on online dating. A lot of her friends
actually noted her to be careful, because there are a lot of crazy people here
(NYC). I agree with that notion.

~~~
shadowgovt
There are a lot of people in NYC, period.

That's going to increase the base number of those with some flavor of mental
instability, but I've never seen anything to suggest the ratio is different
than other places.

~~~
EForEndeavour
In general: "studies have shown that the risk for serious mental illness is
generally higher in cities compared to rural areas" [1].

For NYC specifically: about 60k out of America's 500k homeless people live in
New York City, which is the highest homeless population of any US city [2].
The "large majority of street homeless New Yorkers are people living with
mental illness or other severe health problems" [3].

These sources confirm what I think a lot of people have seen for themselves
through personal travel and experience: mental illness/instability correlates
with urbanization.

[1]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5374256/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5374256/)

[2] [https://www.statista.com/chart/6949/the-us-cities-with-
the-m...](https://www.statista.com/chart/6949/the-us-cities-with-the-most-
homeless-people/)

[3] [https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/basic-facts-about-
ho...](https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/basic-facts-about-homelessness-
new-york-city/)

