The girlfriend of former state Senator Hiram Monserrate is living proof that no-good-deed-goes-unpunished. Karla Giraldo has filed a $35 million lawsuit in Brooklyn federal court against the Queens district attorney’s office and the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System. She claims that LIJ doctors conspired with the police and DA officials to try to coerce her into implicating Monserrate in an assault.
We’re not kidding.
At the time Giraldo told the doctors in the emergency room that Monserrate slashed her in the face with a broken glass and then drove her to hospital on the Queens-Nassau County border. Monserrate was convicted of misdemeanor assault and expelled from the Senate.
Giraldo’s attorney says the doctors in the emergency room were “overzealous” and called police because her boyfriend was an elected official. They charge that “the LIJ defendants intentionally and overzealously exaggerated [Giraldo’s] injuries and cause of said injury solely because they knew [Monserrate] was a high-profile New York State politician,”
Nonsense. The ER at LIJ is staffed with young doctors from all over the world looking to train in one of the best hospitals in America. They probably didn’t know Monserrate from Jack the Ripper.
To win this lawsuit Giraldo will have to convince jurors that the cuts on her face were a terrible accident and that she really didn’t bang on neighbors’ doors begging for help. This will be a heavy lift unless everyone on the jury is as dumb as a rock.
We hope that the targets of this lawsuit will resist the urge to settle out of court just to make the case go away.
A Few Livery Drivers Are a Little Safer
With great fanfare it was announced last week that 12 bullet-proof vests have been donated to livery-cab drivers working in the city’s toughest neighborhoods. The donation was made just two weeks after a driver from Queens was shot and nearly killed by a robber.
The vests worth $430 each were provided by Security USA, a security consulting company. Two more vests were donated by retired cops. The 14 vests are a drop in the bucket. There are hundreds of drivers for whom $430 is a small fortune. It may be that the companies they work for will fork over the money for the vests, but we doubt it.
It is indeed sad that such protection now seems appropriate for the drivers who play such an important role in the outer boroughs.
