Hiram Monerrate has been “spared jail, denied love,” writes the Post: he received a sentence of three years probation, a $1000 fine, domestic violence counseling, and community service–plus a continued restraining order to keep him away from face-slashed lover Karla Giraldo.
Judge William Erlbaum said:
“I am loath to say you can’t be together. But a promise alone that Mr. Monserrate will respect her autonomy is a far cry from remedying the green-eyed monster of jealousy.
“I hope the time will come that Karla Giraldo will have the self-respect to stop acting like a slave.”
The restraining order seems like a not-bad plan, though; as the Post reports in a separate article, convicted criminals who receive probation are “nearly three times likelier” to reoffend than those who receive jail time. And it remains to be seen whether Monserrate will keep his Senate seat. The Times‘ analysis of his political position:
[The case] unfolded just as Mr. Monserrate, a freshman Democrat, played one of the leading roles in a bitter dispute over Senate leadership in Albany. He aligned himself with the Republicans and then rejoined the Democrats, in a move that many of his colleagues characterized as bullish and egotistical.
“He was much more subdued in court,” the article adds.
In other messy domestic dramas: Kisha Jones attempted to kill her huband’s mistress’ unborn child by using a stolen prescription pad and a telephone “spoof card” to frauduelently “prescribe” an abortifacient. When this plot induced premature labor but failed to kill the child, she sent poisoned “breast milk” to the hospital. An accomplice remains at large, but Jones will face a grand jury on Wednesday.
In Michael Daly’s column (“Call Spoofing No Joke”), he considers a contemporary angle on the crime–the criminal potential of spoof card technology, which allows users to disguise their voice and phone number. “The service’s slogan is ‘Be Who You Want To Be,'” he writes, “but it should be, ‘Fool People Into Thinking You Are Somebody Else.'” Elsewhere in the tabloids, Jones’ story brings out the Roger Corman in headline writers: The Post dubs the victim the “‘Witch doc’ tot”; the Daily News writes of the hunt for a “killer milkman.”
The site is “gritty” and “real,” explained one tour guide; it’s “the Disneyland of the Bronx,” said another.
