After nearly two years spent in prison, MAGA Monserrate is looking for a political comeback.
Trigger Warning: Domestic Abuse and Violence
Disgraced ex-State Senator Hiram Monserrate was known for siding with extremist Republicans¹ in office and now regularly associates with MAGA influencers. He was found guilty of assaulting a former partner² AND stealing taxpayer dollars³ that could have been used to clean up our streets. He was expelled from public office and spent nearly two years in jail.⁴
Sources
1. NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/nyregion/09switch.html
2. NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/02/nyregion/hiram-monserrate-ny-metoo.html
3. NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/12/nyregion/hiram-monserrate-gets-2-years-in-prison-for-misusing-city-funds.html
4. NYP: https://nypost.com/2017/07/18/dems-say-ex-con-monserrate-has-real-shot-to-win-old-council-seat/
MAGA Monserrate is in it for himself, NOT US.
He cannot be trusted.
He’s now running to be YOUR representative. Your vote will make a difference:
Election Day is June 25
Early voting June 15, 2024 - June 23, 2024
Learn more about who convicted felon Hiram Monserrate really is.
“A raging state Sen. Hiram Monserrate appears to chase and drag his bleeding, screaming girlfriend from his Queens apartment building as the anguished woman desperately tries to seek help from a neighbor, a bombshell video played in court showed yesterday. The video, a centerpiece of the prosecution’s attempt to prove that the Queens Democrat roughed up gal pal Karla Giraldo, shows the 30-year-old woman grabbing a stair railing and a door frame in a frantic effort to resist the ex-cop and Marine.”
"Two dissident Democrats [Pedro Espada Jr. of the Bronx and Hiram Monserrate of Queens], who had been secretly strategizing with Republicans for weeks, bucked their party’s leaders and joined with 30 Republican senators to form what they said would be a bipartisan powersharing deal. But the arrangement effectively reestablishes Republican control."
“Hiram Monserrate was undone by his greed,” the department’s commissioner, Rose Gill Hearn, said after the sentencing. “He used a nonprofit’s money to serve his own political career rather than his constituency.”
“Disgraced former State Senator and esteemed pizzaiolo Hiram Monserrate pleaded guilty to corruption charges yesterday after being indicted for misusing taxpayer money during his past stint as a councilmember. Monserrate's last publicized fling with the criminal justice system was in 2010, when he was convicted of misdemeanor assault after slashing then-girlfriend Karla Giraldo in the face. This time around, Monserrate's accused of siphoning over $100,000 in City Council "slush" funds in 2006, which he allegedly used to finance a campaign for higher office.”
“You want the water? You want the water? Here’s the water!” With those angry words, state Sen. Hiram Monserrate smashed a glass into his girlfriend Karla Giraldo’s face, an ER doctor quoted her as saying.”
“A grainy security video clearly shows Queens state Sen. Hiram Monserrate dragging his bleeding girlfriend from his building the night he cut her face open.
But prosecutors and defense the lawyers disagree about whether the dramatic footage - shown for the first time at Monserrate's assault trial - proves he is a heel or a hero.
Five snippets from Monserrate's Jackson Heights apartment building show Karla Giraldo howling as he drags her backward out of the vestibule at 3 a.m. on Dec. 19.
At one point, she runs to the door of Apartment 1-L - apparently seeking help. He grabs her arm and pulls her out the front door as she struggles, clutching at the door frame.
He is then seen leading her toward his car with his arm around her. At that point, she is not fighting him.
The tape is the most important evidence against Monserrate because Giraldo won't testify against him - and Queens Supreme Court Justice William Erlbaum will have to decide what it means.
Prosecutors say the security tape reveals Monserrate was in a violent rage after he slashed gal pal Giraldo with a broken glass.
Defense lawyers claim the pol was simply trying to get a reluctant Giraldo to a hospital after she was hurt in a freak accident.
In a pretrial hearing, Erlbaum - who is deciding the case without a jury - said the tape "causes the blood the boil."
Monserrate supporters at the trial disagreed. One, sitting in the back of the room, exclaimed, "That's it?"
Prosecutors say the video is the culmination of a loud fight the couple had after Giraldo came home drunk from a Christmas party with another man's phone number.
The video shows Monserrate walking into the hallway about 1 a.m. to throw a bag into the garbage chute. He flings the card with the phone number down the chute.
Giraldo is seen coming out of their apartment and shoving him. Monserrate ignores her and returns to the apartment.
Monserrate's downstairs neighbor, Carolyn Loudon, testified about the ruckus, saying the yelling was so loud she banged on the ceiling with a yardstick and slammed her door.
Around 3 a.m., she said, "I heard a body hit the floor - boom, a thump."
She then startled the courtroom by describing what she heard next by letting out a piercing, high-pitched scream.
"There was more crying, and then a 'ding, ding' on my doorbell," Loudon said.
She said she looked through her peephole and saw Giraldo's bloody towel lying on the stairs.
"I got the sense that she was being pulled out of the building," Loudon said.
Giraldo, 30, showed up at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, saying Monserrate gave her the wound that needed 20 stitches to close.
She since has changed her tune and backed Monserrate's version - that she was accidentally cut when he stumbled while trying to bring her a glass of water.
Monserrate, 42, a former cop, is a freshman Democrat who faces up to seven years in prison if convicted.”