A man charged with cutting off his wife's arms with a machete during their children's birthday party was taken back to New York City for prosecution Friday after he was discovered in a western Pennsylvania jail.
Proboodat Joucoo, 48, a native of Trinidad and Tobago, is charged with attempted homicide in the attack on his estranged wife, Gaytri Collet, in May 2005 in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn.
Joucoo has been jailed in Pennsylvania since March, when police charged him, under an alias, with sexually assaulting a woman.
Joucoo's case was featured on the television show "America's Most Wanted" in May and a former jailmate recognized him and contacted authorities, who sent a picture of the man to New York City police.
New York City detectives arrived in Pennsylvania on Wednesday to interview the woman Joucoo allegedly assaulted there. On Thursday, Joucoo acknowledged his real identity and waived extradition to New York.
New York authorities said Joucoo sliced off his wife's arms, but they were surgically reattached. She recovered sufficiently to tell her story on "America's Most Wanted."
Joucoo will eventually be brought back to Pennsylvania to face trial on the sexual assault charges.