By Bill Parry
Hiram Monserrate is plotting his return to politics. The disgraced former state senator is running for Democratic district leader in the Elmhurst and Corona neighborhoods, a position held by incumbent George Dixon.
“It seems Hiram didn’t learn the lesson from his previous attempts running for office,” state Sen. Jose Peralta (D-East Elmhurst) said. “The community does not want him back, and they already rejected him twice.”
Monserrate’s campaign literature touts “a lifetime of service delivering for our community” and lists his time on the City Council, the New York State Senate and his service in the U.S. Marine Corps and the NYPD. The literature makes no mention that he was expelled from the state Senate in 2010 after he was convicted of assaulting his girlfriend Karla Giraldo.
Monserrate shocked the borough’s political scene when he slashed Giraldo’s face with glass, then pulled her down the stairs and through the hallway of his Jackson Heights apartment building. Giraldo later claimed the slashing, was an accident but he received a misdemeanor assault conviction for pulling her by her hair, which was caught by a security camera.
In 20012, Monserrate was sentenced to 24 months in prison for fraud after he used City Council funds through a Corona non-profit and (then using the organization) to conduct his failed 2006 state Senate campaign.
As a convicted felon he cannot run for public office but can for district leader because it is an unpaid, volunteer political position.
Monserrate could not be reached for comment.
Reach reporter Bill Parry by e-mail at bparr
