A mentally ill homeless man who randomly knifed a young woman on the Upper East Side was slammed with 12 years in prison on Tuesday.
Curtis Forteau, who had just been sprung from a psych ward when he stabbed Sabatha Tirado on E. 86th St. in July 2012, will also get five years of post-release supervision after pleading guilty last month to attempted murder.
Tirado, who worked at a salon nearby, survived after Forteau plunged an eight-inch kitchen knife into h*er stomach as she tried to resist the horrifying mid-morning attack, which also included Forteau pepper spraying her while trying to steal her purse.
Forteau, 31, gave a statement to in Manhattan Supreme Court and suggested that he was influenced by voices to assault the victim.
“I never intentionally did anything. I felt my life is in great danger. Please accept the plea. Pardon. Please accept my righteous and true apologies,” he said.
Justice Daniel Conviser urged Forteau to get treatment in prison — which the would-be killer didn’t seem to grasp.
“A lot of times, when people may have some mental health issues, they may not think they have a mental health issue,” the judge said.
“I am going to encourage you, to the extent there is treatment available to you in state prison … to avail yourself of it.
“I think it can help you. It can help a lot of people,” the judge added.
The words seem to be lost on Forteau.
“I have been in two colleges, one for theology to be a preacher. I am very, very intelligent… They are not capable of taking care of me. I am very capable of taking care of myself,” the deranged defendant said.
His lawyer, Kevin Michael Canfield, said Forteau “has a long history of mental illness” and was “hospitalized numerous times, ever since he was a teenager.
“He was doing well for a long time and something happened that day and he snapped,” Canfield said.
“Now he’s going to get more mental health treatment — hopefully — upstate, and we won’t see him again.”
Prosecutors had requested an additional three years behind bars for Forteau, who is a paranoid schizophrenic.
