MANHATTAN — A former top NYPD psychologist pleaded guilty Friday to shooting her husband in the head while he slept during a botched attempt to get rid of him and take up with her Texas lover, officials said.
Dr. Emily Dearden, 48, was accused of shooting her husband, Kenneth, a millionaire real estate developer, in their Yonkers home at 4 a.m. Nov. 14, 2013 as he and their children were asleep.
Kenneth Dearden, also 48, was awakened by the shot and was initially unaware that a .22 caliber bullet, fired from a family antique Derringer, had lodged in his jaw, according to Westchester Country District Attorney Anthony Scarpino Jr.
At the time of the shooting, Emily Dearden was responsible for counseling troubled officers out of the department's Medical Division offices in Queens.
She told police that a burglar broke into their home and shot her husband when she woke up and startled him.
Her husband spent eight days at Westchester Medical Center, where he underwent surgery to remove the bullet.
It wasn’t until a year later that Emily Dearden was arrested after her husband filed a civil lawsuit alleging she was having an affair with a Texas finance company executive and had tried to kill him so she could run off with her lover.
In the lawsuit, Kenneth Dearden claimed that when he awoke from the shot he thought he saw his wife in the room with him.
He then staggered out of the bedroom and found her lying on the floor downstairs with her eyes closed. She claimed to have been hit in the head by an intruder, the lawsuit said.
Emily Dearden, who hails form the Upper West Side, remains free on bail after pleading guilty to one count of attempted assault in the first degree, a felony.
She faces up to 15 years in prison when she is sentenced on June 7.