Politician Assaulted His Girlfriend Heã¢â‚¬â„¢s Running Again
He Assaulted His Girlfriend. At present He Wants a Political Comeback.
Hiram Monserrate, the get-go fellow member of New York's Legislature to be expelled in nearly a century, is running once again.
For the better office of a decade, the name Hiram Monserrate has been shorthand for the darkest side of New York politics.
In 2009, Mr. Monserrate, at the time a state senator, was convicted of domestic set on, and presently subsequently he was expelled from office. In 2012, in a separate case, he pleaded guilty to misusing hundreds of thousands of dollars in public money and was sentenced to two years in prison.
And yet, 10 years after becoming the first person in nearly a century to be kicked out of the Country Legislature — and fresh on the heels of the emergence of the #MeToo move — he may be poised for a political improvement.
Mr. Monserrate, a Queens Democrat who is too a one-time Urban center Council member, raised more than $68,000 from Nov to Jan, according to land filings, for an expected run against Assemblyman Jeffrion L. Aubry. Mr. Aubry, who represents a district in north central Queens, raised almost $viii,000 in the same menses.
This is not the start fourth dimension Mr. Monserrate, 52, has tried to make a comeback. But it is his virtually high-profile bid since the #MeToo movement forced the world to confront the way powerful men treated women, and since the progressive Democrats now ascendant in Albany promised to clean upward its politics.
"I am then appalled then angry at fifty-fifty the possibility," said Assemblywoman Aravella Simotas, a Democrat who represents a neighboring district in Queens and who sponsored a package of anti-sexual harassment laws concluding year. "We elected so many young progressive women to fight for us. The last thing we need is to accept a huge pace backward."
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All the same even Mr. Monserrate'southward most fervent opponents concede that it would exist unwise to dismiss his chances.
Such an assessment stems, in part, from circumstances: a potentially vulnerable incumbent, a district with irresolute demographics and Mr. Monserrate'southward reputation as an effective retail politician.
He has already proven his resiliency: In 2018, he was elected as a district leader for the Queens Democratic Party, an unpaid, hyperlocal position that gives him access to highly engaged voters.
Mr. Monserrate said that his story was one of second chances. He said his feel with the criminal justice system should recommend, rather than disqualify, him for public office, especially as the Legislature continues to debate changes to bail and incarceration laws.
"Having been ane of the few people who has been on both sides of information technology, I think that I have some moral authority to speak to these issues," he said in an interview.
But for some people, the prospect of a victory by Mr. Monserrate highlights the political system's failures.
"I had said that this claiming was a joke," said Francisco Moya, a Democratic City Quango member who defeated Mr. Monserrate in several of his previous comeback attempts. "Merely the reality is that information technology's actually a bad joke, and it actually might exist on usa if this becomes a reality."
Even among New York's many disgraced politicians, Mr. Monserrate stands out. A calendar month subsequently being elected to the State Senate in 2008, he was accused of slashing his partner at the time, Karla Giraldo, with a broken drinking glass.
Surveillance video showed Mr. Monserrate dragging Ms. Giraldo down a hallway and out of the building where they had been fighting. He then drove her to a hospital xxx minutes away, despite there being some other i within blocks. There, she received 20 stitches.
Although Ms. Giraldo told doctors that Mr. Monserrate had attacked her, she afterwards testified in his defense, claiming that the cuts were adventitious.
A gauge found Mr. Monserrate guilty of misdemeanor set on for dragging Ms. Giraldo; Mr. Monserrate escaped a felony conviction for slicing her face. Nonetheless, the gauge said, "He did indeed cause injury to Karla Giraldo without a reasonable doubt."
Soon after, the Senate voted 53-to-8 to expel Mr. Monserrate — the first time in nearly a century that the Legislature had forced a member out of role.
His legal troubles did not cease there.
In 2010, fresh off ii failed bids to regain elected office, Mr. Monserrate was indicted by federal prosecutors who defendant him of steering more $300,000 in city funds to a nonprofit group he controlled while serving on the City Council. He had used about a third of the money to support his outset run for the State Senate, prosecutors said.
Mr. Monserrate pleaded guilty in 2012.
Paradigm
Yet to the astonishment of many people, his tape has not stopped him from trying to re-enter politics, or, more recently, from enjoying some success.
He suffered decisive losses in campaigns for Land Senate and Associates in 2010, and he was defeated in 2016 in an earlier bid for district leader in Queens. In 2017, he lost a bid for Urban center Quango by 11 percent points. (Land law does non prohibit nearly felons from seeking public function.)
The side by side year, Mr. Monserrate ran for district leader again and won.
As Mr. Monserrate prepares for a potential Assembly campaign, he has been using the platform to raise his profile.
He attended a recent result hosted past a progressive activism group in Queens that had invited all of the canton's district leaders. At another event, Fernando Cabrera, a Democratic Urban center Council member from the Bronx, and at least one other commune leader were photographed with Mr. Monserrate and a "Hiram 2020" sign.
In January, Mr. Monserrate visited a senior center in Corona, in the district where he would run, and handed out cookies to dozens of older guests. He denied that he was actively campaigning, maxim in an interview that he was there in his "capacity as commune leader." He said that he would formally determine whether to run within a few weeks.
Mr. Monserrate's lasting popularity with some voters is specially striking given his rejection by the state's virtually powerful Democrats, including Gov. Andrew Thou. Cuomo and Mayor Neb de Blasio. Asked about Mr. Monserrate's potential 2020 campaign, Mr. de Blasio called him a "vampire."
Still, in a possible sign of Mr. Monserrate's deep support among some voters, some elected officials in the area where he might run take chosen to stay silent. Of the six Assembly members from Queens whose districts edge Mr. Aubry'south, all just Ms. Simotas declined to annotate or did not respond to requests for comment.
Senator Jessica Ramos, whose district includes that Associates district, also declined; she has said in the by that voters should get to decide.
The Assembly speaker, Carl E. Heastie, said in a statement that Mr. Aubry was "undoubtedly" the best person to serve his customs. Mr. Heastie did not mention Mr. Monserrate. In an email, Mr. Aubry declined to comment on Mr. Monserrate or any other potential challenger.
Mr. Monserrate dismissed the high-contour criticisms.
"I'one thousand glad that they don't live in the district and they can't vote," he said. "People in authorities are not really in tune and believe that their reactionary voice, the reactionary vocalisation of condemnation, should dominion the twenty-four hours."
Mr. Monserrate'due south supporters pointed to the demographics of the commune, which includes Due east Elmhurst and Corona and has a growing Hispanic population. Mr. Monserrate, who is Hispanic, leads an influential Autonomous club there; Mr. Aubry is black.
Further fueling Mr. Monserrate'southward support is a history of distrust toward the local political establishment, and deep cynicism almost political and legal processes, some people said.
Virginia Ramos Rios, an activist who served as entrada manager for Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018, said that when she was courting support for Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, some voters called Mr. Monserrate the just political leader they trusted.
"Peculiarly with the Spanish-speaking, they'd be similar, 'Whenever I've had an issue, the merely elected official I've ever had actually practice something and help me was Hiram Monserrate,'" Ms. Ramos Rios said.
Bertha Lewis, the president of the Blackness Found and a prominent civil rights activist, said that corruption was and then owned to New York politics that Mr. Monserrate, after serving fourth dimension in prison, had really demonstrated more accountability than virtually public officials.
Asked whether she would prefer someone who had non committed crimes in the first place, she scoffed. "They merely haven't gotten caught," she said.
Withal, others dismissed the idea that Mr. Monserrate had changed every bit a outcome of his prison stint. Courtroom records prove that he had repaid merely $8,400 of more than $79,000 in restitution ordered by the judge in 2012 for stealing public funds. Mr. Monserrate said he planned to finish repaying the restitution in the coming weeks.
Cecilia Gastón, the old executive manager of Violence Intervention Program, an organization that helps Latina victims of domestic violence, said that even if Mr. Monserrate paid his debt in full, he however would not have earned dorsum the right to agree office.
"I cannot accept that the simply candidate that we have to represent Latinos in Albany," she said, "is somebody that is a domestic violence abuser and somebody that has been in jail for theft."
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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/02/nyregion/hiram-monserrate-ny-metoo.html
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