PHOENIX — A man wanted in New York last month in a fatal bludgeoning at a Manhattan hotel has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and other charges in Arizona, with two women stabbed more than a week later in metro Phoenix.
Council Noah Almansoori, 26, was arraigned Tuesday in Maricopa County Superior Court on charges in the Feb. 17 stabbings in Phoenix and Feb. 18 in suburban Surprise.
Almansoori’s only comments during the two-minute hearing were to mention his name and date of birth when the court requested it. After the hearing, his attorney, Dakota Johnson, did not immediately respond to a phone call seeking comment on his client’s behalf.
Almansoori’s trial on the Arizona charges was scheduled for July 2.
He is accused of stabbing an 18-year-old woman in the neck at least three times in the bathroom of a McDonald’s restaurant in the Surprise community. Police also say he stabbed another woman a day earlier in Phoenix.
New York police say Almansoori is also a suspect in the Feb. 8 murder of a woman in that city. Denisse Oleas-Arancibia’s body was found by staff on the floor of a hotel room. Officers said her death was determined to be caused by blunt force trauma to the head, and a broken iron was found nearby.
The Arizona case has sparked a political feud between Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, a Republican, and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat.
Mitchell refused to return Almansoori to New York for prosecution before he was tried in Arizona for the stabbings. Almansoori, who is being held without bail on the Arizona charges, said during a court hearing Monday that he would not waive formal extradition proceedings to New York while he is prosecuted on the Arizona charges.
