Jury selection starts in NYC therapist slay trial

Jury selection has started for the trial of a mental patient accused of lashing out with a meat cleaver and killing a New York psychotherapist after a bizarre robbery plot went astray.

A Manhattan judge said Tuesday that David Tarloff’s trial is expected to take five to six weeks. Jury selection may take the rest of this week.

The schizophrenic Tarloff, 42, is planning an insanity defense in the February 2008 attack.

He’s charged with murdering psychologist Kathryn Faughey and assaulting her officemate, psychiatrist Dr. Kent Shinbach.

Tarloff told police he’d set out to rob Shinbach, who had treated him 17 years before. Tarloff said he aimed to get money to whisk his mother out of a nursing home.