Sure, there are laws prohibiting candidates from going within 100 feet of polling stations on election day, but this is Hiram Monserrate we're talking about! The Times followed him around today as he drove around in a sound truck blaring a recorded message, in English and Spanish, "With Hiram Monserrate, yes, we can." Voters in Queens are deciding whether to give him back his Senate seat after he was expelled in February for assaulting his girlfriend. Asked about his misdemeanor conviction, Monserrate said, "There’s dozens of elected officials with misdemeanors." And when a poll worker approached him outside Public School 89 in Jackson Heights to ask him to move the trucks that were part of his caravan, Monserrate seemed to step through a wormhole back to the Eisenhower era: more ›

Since being convicted of misdemeanor assault for dragging his girlfriend down a building hallway last October, expelled state Sen. Hiram Monserrate has skipped all three court-mandated domestic-violence counseling sessions and hardly started his obligatory 250 hours of community service. "He was told, 'This is serious,'" a source told the Post. "It was made clear, 'If you miss again, violation is next.'" more ›

Other than the fact it might have been illegal, was the expulsion of disgraced state Sen. Hiram Monserrate a bad idea? Voting to kick out Monserrate following his misdemeanor conviction for domestic assault leaves Democrats with a precarious 31-30 majority in Albany, where a 32-vote quorum is needed to pass any legislation. more ›

If there's one thing that brings Albany Democrats and Albany Republicans together, it's their general dislike of state Sen. Hiram Monserrate (D-Queens). According to the Daily News, Senate GOP Leader Dean Skelos believes there's a "real possibility" that Republicans will band together with some Democrats to bring to the Senate floor a resolution to expel Monserrate — who was convicted of misdemeanor assault for slashing his girlfriend with a broken glass. more ›

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. more ›

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." more ›

[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." more ›

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. more ›