College student convicted of stabbing blind date during sex thought she was Salma Hayek’s ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’ character
A college student convicted of stabbing a blind date during sex as revenge for a US drone strike that killed an Iranian commander now insists she was hallucinating amid the frenzied attack, telling The Post she believed she was Salma Hayek’s character in “From Dusk Till Dawn.”
Nika Nikoubin, 23, also claims she only told authorities the stabbing was retaliation for the deadly 2020 drone strike that targeted the military leader because she thought she was starring in a “Homeland” episode by the time she was interrogated.
The Texas student, who has schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, detailed her mindset to The Post on Tuesday — just weeks after a judge sentenced her to three years probation for stabbing her date, Daniel Trevino, in the neck during a rendezvous in a Las Vegas-area hotel last year.
“I was in a very manic state of mind,” Nikoubin said.
“I essentially looked in the mirror and I thought, ‘This actress is hot,’ thinking I’m Salma Hayek from the ‘Dusk Till Dawn’ movie, and I was hallucinating there was a snake around my shoulders,” she added, referring to Quentin Tarantino’s 1996 screenplay.
Nikoubin had met her victim on the Plenty of Fish dating app before the pair decided to meet for sex at the Sunset Station Hotel and Casino on March 5, 2022, cops have previously said.
While having sex, Nikoubin blindfolded her date and then stabbed him in the neck with a pink kitchen knife that she’d brought with her.
The victim testified he shoved her off him after feeling a sharp pain and yelled, “What are you doing?” Nikoubin quickly fled the hotel room but was nabbed by cops soon after.
“I was so far gone that even when I had handcuffs around me, I was still thinking I was a character. I thought I was going to have a custody scene … like a scene shot in jail,” Nikoubin claimed.
“When I was being interviewed I thought I was a TV character. I thought I was Carrie [played by Claire Danes] from ‘Homeland’ and I was imagining a camera behind me recording all these scenes.”
During the interrogation, Nikoubin — who came to the US from Iran at the age of 12 — told detectives she was spilling American blood out of “spite and revenge” over the US’ slaying of Iranian military leader, Qasem Soleimani.
“I don’t believe in the things that I said that night. It is not within my political views, it is not within my family’s political views,” she claimed to The Post.
The perp, who claims she was off her meds at the time, said she only realized she’d stabbed Trevino six weeks later while she was holed up in a jail cell.
At trial, her lawyer blamed the stabbing frenzy on a psychotic episode.
Nikoubin told the judge she’d been raped when she was 18 years old and that she didn’t realize how much her mental health had deteriorated in the aftermath.
She also claimed that she had been in a mental health facility shortly before moving to Vegas — a month before meeting Tevino at the hotel.
“I was three weeks into taking my medication when I moved to Las Vegas and just walking down The Strip, I threw away all my medication,” she said.
“I was hallucinating. I had so many delusions. I was on alcohol. I wasn’t doing what my parents taught me to do. Couple all that together, I had a manic episode. Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. These all prior to my arrest.”
For the past year, Nikoubin claims she has consistently been on her meds.
Meanwhile, despite apologizing to her victim in court, the knife-wielding offender on Tuesday repeatedly refused to answer questions about him.
Trevino said in court that he’d chosen to “forgive” her but “whatever the law decides to do, that’s up to the law.”
The Post reached out to him but didn’t immediately hear back.
After pleading guilty to two counts of false imprisonment with the use of a deadly weapon, the judge sentenced Nikoubin to probation and house arrest — citing her mental health struggles as the reason for avoiding prison.
