Police Psychologist Cops a Plea in Husband Shooting

An NYPD psychologist who shot her husband while he was asleep pleaded guilty Friday to one count of attempted assault.

Emily Dearden of 82 Pondfield Road West, Yonkers, New York, had originally been charged with second-degree attempted murder.

At 4 a.m. Nov.14, 2013, Kenneth Dearden woke up with a pain on the left side of his head, Westchester County District Attorney Anthony A. Scarpino, Jr. said in the plea bargain announcement. Police and EMS were called. Hospital staff determined that he had been shot in the head.

Kenneth Dearden was transferred to a trauma center (he spent eight days at Westchester Medical Center where he underwent surgery to remove a .22 caliber bullet from his jaw).

Detectives obtained a search warrant and returned to the crime scene.

A year later, Yonkers police arrested his wife. Emily Dearden, who had told police she had been knocked out by an intruder, was alleged to have had an affair with a Texas man, Warren David Roudebush, with whom she planned to start a new life.

Her husband also sued her. Kenneth Dearden, a real estate developer, said in the lawsuit that she “had been having an on-and-off extramarital affair since at least early 2011.”

At the time she fired, using an antique derringer according to the New York Post, the couple’s children were sleeping only a few feet away, prosecutors said.

Dearden, 48, remains out on bail. She will be sentenced on June 7. She faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in state prison.

Assistant District Attorney Wendy Parra and Assistant District Attorney Doreen Lloyd of the Special Prosecutions Division are prosecuting the case.