By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2025-04-03 21:38:32 | Updated at 2025-04-04 17:36:21
20 hours ago
She was wigged out from the start.
The unhinged Brooklyn wigmaker charged in a horrific fatal crash was an overweight and insecure girl from a “nerdy religious” Jewish family — and got “screwed up” after a teen affair with a married NYPD cop, a childhood friend told The Post.
Miriam Yarimi, 32, attended Beit Yaakov Orot Sarah, a religious school for girls just a block from her Midwood home, but frequently strayed from her faith during spates of bizarre and often unstable behavior, former classmate Ahuva Katzin said Thursday.
“When I think back, she was sick from very, very young,” Katzin said. “It was so obvious.
“Her happy phases always go to religion,” she said. “Like every other week you’ll see she’s religious, and then the next week she’s not religious. She’ll swear that she’s going to keep Shabbat, and then three days later, you’ll see her on a cruise in a photo that was taken on Shabbat.”
Katzin also said that despite the flashy lifestyle Yarimi displayed on her social media accounts — with high-end fashion, fast cars and sultry vacation bikini pics — she lived a lonely, solitary existence.
“She doesn’t do much, but when she does there’s a picture of it,” the childhood pal said. “Otherwise, 90% of her time she’s in her apartment, in bed. She barely goes out.
“She wants it to look like she does, but I’ve seen he wear the same pair of pants for like three weeks straight,” she said. “Sometimes I’d wonder, ‘When did you have time to make these posts? Like, when did that happen?'”
Yarimi is now being held without bail on manslaughter charges in the Saturday afternoon crash that killed 35-year-old mom Natasha Saada and her two daughters, Diana, 8, and Debra, 5.
Philip Saada, 4, was left in critical condition and is still fighting for his life.
She was arraigned from her bed at NYU Langone Hospital in Brooklyn on Thursday morning, wearing a yellow hospital gown and neatly trimmed hair — as prosecutors claimed she went on a bizarre rant to cops after she was busted in the deadly wreck.
“The devil’s in my eyes,” she allegedly told cops, according to a criminal complaint. “I’m haunted inside. I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t hurt anyone. Prove it. Show me proof.
“Where’s my phone? My phone was left in the car. My phone is still on scene,” Yarimi allegedly rambled. “I need CT scans in my eyes. I need to get scanning done now. I need to get my eyes scanned again. The devil is in my eyes.”
Katzin said her old friend’s erratic behavior only worsened in recent years — but started early in her life.
Yarimi, who identified as a Sephardic Jew of Yemenite roots, grew up on East 12th Street in Brooklyn, one of six children raised by a single mom — with her father living in Israel.
Katzin said Yarimi, who went by her middle name of Elisheva back then, was overweight as a youngster and “really didn’t like how she looked and she was very insecure.
“She was very insecure and she was just awkward,” she said. “But she always was super, super hyper.”
Katzin also said Yarimi had “a mental breakdown” and even shaved her head after an affair with a married NYPD cop when she was just a young teenager fizzled and left her distraught.
“I was literally there for years and years of this relationship she had with this guy who she thought was gonna leave his wife for her,” she said. “She was 13, 14, and anytime we had anything going on, a birthday party or whatever, he would always call her. She was busy with him all day, all night, whenever he called.
“This guy completely screwed her up. It was one thing after the next after the next, and then she ended up having some mental breakdown and shaved her head. The wigmaker thing was her getting over that.”
Yarimi later sued the NYPD over the inappropriate affair, which led to a $2 million settlement in December.
It was the first of at least two nasty encounters with New York’s Finest, culminating with a notice of claim — an announcement of an intent to sue — that Yarimi filed in January claiming she was manhandled by police in October when they showed up at her apartment to take her for a psych eval.
In recent years, neighbors and friends said Yarimi has gotten increasingly paranoid, and has floated wild conspiracy theories online — even claiming iconic blonde bombshell Marilyn Monroe was assassinated by the CIA for leaking secrets to former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
“As we got older she got sicker and sicker — like, super sick.” Katzin said. “She’s just completely gone. Like, her mind is so warped from so many years of untreated mental illness.
“She was screaming for help from the rooftops,” she added. “I feel like I let her down. I feel like everyone’s let her down. She needed help for a long time, and people are making her out to be a monster who intended to do this.”
