Results tagged “monserrate”

Yesterday, Hiram Monserrate's lawyer discounted the testimony of Emergency Room nurse Dawn Kort in the senator's girlfriend-slash trial, citing a language barrier. Apparently, Monserrate's girlfriend Karla Giraldo speaks Spanglish, especially when she's drunk. But this is New York City, remember, the capital of the world. It turns out that Kort speaks Spanglish too. In fact, the Post reports that her father was from Panama, her mother from Puerto Rico, and she studied in Spain to boot. So much for that defense.

Hiram Monserrate's lawyer Joe Tacopina called his client's yanking his bleeding girlfriend down a staircase "reasonable force, not violence." He claimed that she was refusing to go to a hospital and was drunk, and the state senator needed to forcibly convince her to go. To explain why they did not go to Elmhurst Hospital, which was two blocks away, and instead drove to Long Island Jewish, twelve miles away, Tacopina said, "It's a better hospital."

[UPDATE BELOW, with video] State Senator Hiram Monserrate's girlfriend told hospital workers he had beaten her and slashed her face only because she was drunk, Monserrate's lawyer said yesterday. "Were not blaming her for anything," said famed defense lawyer Joe Tacopina. "But intoxication impairs one's ability to perceive." The Post also notes that Tacopina blamed a "language barrier."

Today in Kew Gardens opening arguments were heard in the bench trial of State Senator Hiram Monserrate, who faces three counts of felony assault against his girlfriend, Karla Giraldo. The Daily News reports that the prosecutor accused Monserrate of flying into a jealous rage at finding another man's business card in his girlfriend's purse, and attacked her with a glass of water, saying, "You want the water? You want the water? Here's your water!", slashing her face with the broken glass.