By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — Linda Stein used racial slurs and called building workers "rats," her personal assistant and accused killer told a detective the day after the celebrity realtor was murdered.
Det. Angelique Loffredo described for jurors Friday her interview with Natavia Lowery, who is accused to bludgeoning the ex-Ramones manager to death inside Stein’s Upper East Side apartment in 2007.
Lowery, 28, said Stein screamed and cursed at contractors who disturbed the private yoga practice she ran inside her Fifth Avenue penthouse apartment in the weeks before her death, Loffredo testified.
Stein became "so irate" on one occasion that her building’s superintendent was called to her apartment to calm Stein down.
"[Lowery] said she was good at calming [Stein] down. She would also suggest and recommend that [Stein] take her 'purple pill,' " Loffredo told jurors during testimony Friday, referring to medication Stein took.
Loffredo detailed the interview with Lowery in which she described her boss as a raging and forgetful alcoholic who smoked marijuana daily.
"She said that she smoked pretty much every day, wherever she felt like it — in the cab, when she went for a walk," the detective recalled from her interview with Lowery.
Stein attended one Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, but lied to her daughters about continuing with the program, Lowery claimed in the interview.
"She would have [Lowery] answer the phone while she was sitting right there and say, 'Tell her I'm at a meeting,' " Loffredo testified.
Part of Lowery's defense is the claim that Stein acted rude and testy and had a handful of enemies.
Lowery told investigators and her former colleagues at Stein’s real estate agency that despite being black, Lowery was able to get along with Stein and was not subjected to the same language as the building workers.
"She said [Stein] was fine, she wouldn't have talked to her that way," Loffredo said. "They had a fine relationship."
