Kaitlynn Berman, 23, was stabbed 22 times in her Bronx apartment while her three-year-old daughter was in the next room. After facing her attacker in court, she vomited when his sentence was read out.
On Wednesday Kaitlynn Berman stood in court and spoke directly to the man who had stabbed her 22 times in her own home.
When she heard his sentence she vomited. Christopher Joseph was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison.
The attack that happened in her own apartment
In March 2025, Berman was looking after a friend’s cat at her apartment in the Bronx. Joseph, her friend’s boyfriend and someone Berman considered a friend, came to pick up the cat.
According to the Bronx District Attorney’s Office, he then attacked her without warning. Joseph stabbed her around 22 times in the face, neck, hands and stomach. Berman’s three-year-old daughter was in the next room. He was arrested shortly afterwards at a nearby subway station, reportedly still coveread in her blood.
Berman spent 48 days at NYC Health + Hospitals/Jacobi. She went through three surgeries and several blood transfusions, and doctors had to repair her intestines.
She wasn’t expected to make it, but she did, albeit with permanent nerve damage and scars across her face, neck and body.
A message for her attacker
In court, Berman read a prepared statement for around 15 minutes. She described the attack in detail, and the long recovery she is still going through.
“You failed to take my life, and you won’t take away my future,” she told Joseph.
He showed no reaction. He didn’t speak, look away or move. Supporters filled the courtroom on her side. Pastor Cheryl Singletary, who has been advising Berman, sat next to her throughout the hearing, and helped her to a seat after she was sick.
Calls for a longer sentence
Prosecutors had wanted him to get 10 years. Outside the courthouse, Bishop Boyde Singletary, who has supported Berman alongside his wife, did not hold back.
“This man, this monster, Christopher Joseph, should be doing 22 years to life – one year for each stabbing. No remorse, no anything,” he said.
Berman herself had asked for the same: one year for every stab wound.
The time Joseph actually serves could be shorter still. In New York, people convicted of violent felonies can usually be released after serving about six-sevenths of their sentence, which would mean roughly seven years and three months.
Berman left the courthouse in tears.
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