An East Elmhurst woman was convicted of assault after she attacked her boyfriend with a samurai sword in the summer of 2016, prosecutors announced Monday.
After a three-week-long trial, Karla Barba, 40, was found guilty of second-degree assault and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child. She is due to return to court for sentencing on Feb. 21, where she faces up to 7 years in prison.
“This was an horrific attack and it is amazing the victim survived. The walls and doors of the apartment were splattered with blood and the floors covered in puddles of blood,” said District Attorney Richard A. Brown. “The defendant called the incident an accident. The jury, however, thought differently and after weighing all the evidence, convicted the woman of assault. The defendant now faces a lengthy term of incarceration.”
According to trial testimony, on June 8, 2016, Barba got into an argument with her live-in boyfriend, Franklin Larrea, in the bedroom of Larrea’s 12-year-old son. After Larrea pulled Barba out of his son’s room, Barba grabbed a nearby samurai sword, which still had the blade’s sheath on, and smacked Larrea in the head.
The blade’s sheath fell off the sword when Barba hit Larrea two more times, slicing him in the left forearm and wrist.
As a result, Larrea lost a significant amount of blood from the deep cuts. He was rushed to a local hospital, where he received a life-saving blood transfusion. However, Larrea’s wrist and arm suffered severed nerves and tendons from the cuts.
A report from the New York Post states that Barba’s ex-fiancé was disgraced Queens pol Hiram Monserrate. Monserrate was convicted of a misdemeanor assault in 2009 after a video of him attacking Barba resurfaced, ultimately costing him his Senate seat. Barba’s lawyer, Stacey Richman, requested a special prosecutor when she found out that Barba had previously sued Queens prosecutors back in 2010 for harassment.
