By Jeremy Walsh
The defense team of state Sen. Hiram Monserrate (D-East Elmhurst) rested Thursday without calling their client to the stand.
Monserrate, 42, faces felony assault charges for allegedly slashing his girlfriend’s face open with a drinking glass during a fight in December. He and his girlfriend, Karla Giraldo, both claim her injuries were accidental.
The trial will resume with closing arguments Tuesday in State Supreme Court in Queens.
Attorney Joseph Tacopina rested his case after calling Giraldo’s cousin, Jasmina Rojas, Wednesday.
Rojas testified that Giraldo was drunk when they left a Christmas Party Dec. 19 for Monserrate’s Jackson Heights apartment. She said she escorted Giraldo upstairs, used the bathroom and then left.
Assistant Queens District Attorney Scott Kessler got Rojas to testify that she had not told anyone Giraldo was drunk before appearing in court that day.
“All of a sudden this ‘drunk’ is coming out of nowhere for the first time,” he told Judge William Erlbaum.
Kessler also submitted a photograph of Rojas posing with her arm around Monserrate in his office in an effort to demonstrate their friendship. Rojas said the photo was taken while she was conducting business for her newspaper, El Resumen.
Monserrate got into a fight with Giraldo last year when he found another man’s police union card in her purse. He threw the card down an incinerator chute in his hallway, causing Giraldo to rush toward the chute to retrieve it. After that, prosecutors allege, the couple continued to fight for two hours before Giraldo asked for a glass of water and Monserrate shoved the glass in her face.
Tacopina has said that Monserrate took the glass of water to a drunken Giraldo who was half-asleep on his bed, tripped and fell over on her.
Reach reporter Jeremy Walsh by e-mail at jewalsh@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 154.
