The surveillance video of the night State Senator Hiram Monserrate allegedly assaulted girlfriend Karla Giraldo proved too much for a tearful Giraldo, who fled a Queens County Supreme Courtroom on day six of the Democrat’s highly publicized trial, only to return minutes later. A standing-room only audience had watched and listened intently as Giraldo took to the stand for the first time on Wednesday, September 30.
Assistant District Attorney Scott Kessler wanted to treat Giraldo as a hostile witness earlier in the day because Giraldo tried to avoid answering questions. However, Justice William Erlbaum denied the request, but said he would reconsider.
The expectation that Giraldo, 30, would have to take the stand grew in the past few days as many people believed the prosecution’s case of trying to paint Monserrate as jealous boyfriend hadn’t stacked up to the defense’s slicing and dicing of the prosecution’s witnesses.
But, on the sixth day of court, Kessler subpoenaed Giraldo, the only other person in Monserrate’s apartment at the time of the incident when a broken glass tumbler left her with at least 20 stitches to the left side of her face and resulted in Monserrate’s arrest.
“I felt drunk, and my female cousin took me up to the apartment,” said a now brunette and slimmer Giraldo, who spoke through a court interpreter.
Giraldo said that she had been drinking since around 6 p.m. the day of the incident, a response that supported Defense Attorney Joseph Tacopina’s argument that she had been drunk when Giraldo arrived at Long Island Jewish Medical Center. Her drunkenness, Tacopina said in his opening remarks, also contributed to a misunderstanding of Giraldo’s words when the doctors asked her what happened.
Kessler tried a few times to get her to admit that she speaks and reads English, but he did not succeed during the morning session, despite statements from medical personnel and police officers that said they spoke to Giraldo in English.
In court, Giraldo said she drank some alcohol at home before leaving for a Christmas party where she also drank wine before arriving at Monserrate’s apartment in the early morning hours of December 19, 2008.
Giraldo also testified that Monserrate went through her purse without her permission. “He doesn’t need my permission,” she said, and he found the expired 2007 Patrolmen Benevolent Association (PBA) card of another man.
“But when he said he would throw it away, I didn’t believe it,” said Giraldo, describing Monserrate’s voice as a normal man’s voice. “I think he got a little bit jealous.”
The surveillance video of the apartment released last week shows Monserrate throwing the PBA card in the trash.
On Tuesday, a 19-year NYPD veteran who photographed Monserrate’s apartment that night testified. Among the items photographed were bloody towels, a torn white sleeveless T-shirt recovered from a garbage can, a bloody white bed sheet, a bloody green shirt recovered from the sink in the bathroom and a broken glass on the bed.
The prosecution is arguing an enraged Monserrate struck Giraldo in the face with a piece of glass while the defense claims it was a freak accident. Monserrate could face seven years in jail if convicted.
