Disgraced former state Sen. Hiram Monserrate is petitioning to get on the ballot for Assembly in Queens - and one of the candidates running for the job says the ousted lawmaker got in his face about it.
"I have seen Hiram and his people out petitioning,” Democrat Francisco Moya, who’s trying to get elected in the 39th Assembly District, told me.
On Sunday, June 13, “two of his volunteers showed up at my church while I was petitioning with my father,” Moya said. “They proceeded to accost us by yelling and screaming obscenities in front of a church on Sunday. And then he showed up and jumped right in with them. At a church on Sunday. Some things never change."
Monserrate’s colleagues overwhelmingly voted to eject him from the Senate in February after he was convicted on a misdemeanor charge of assaulting his then-girlfriend, Karla Giraldo.
He filed a failed lawsuit to get his job back, saying his ouster was unconstitutional, and then got hammered, 65% to 27%, by then-Assemblyman Jose Peralta in a March special election for his Senate seat.
Since, he’s got petitioners on the street and there’s been activity at his Queens campaign office (as you can see in this photo, the lights were on Tuesday), although he has been reluctant to answer questions about his plans.
Moya, who's in government affairs for Cablevision, was handing out campaign literature near his Corona church, St. Leo’s, when he said Monserrate’s volunteers started badgering him, obstructing him as he tried to distribute his lit and talk to voters.
Then he said Monserrate himself showed up and spoke harshly to him before backing off and heading into a nearby store.
“I know nothing about it. I know nothing about what he’s talking about,” Monserrate told me when I reached him to ask about Moya’s allegations.
He wouldn’t comment on his political future either.
Moya campaign advisor Nathan Smith says Monserrate just isn’t getting the message.
“By a margin of well over two to one, thousands of voters from this district overwhelmingly rejected disgraced politician Hiram Monserrate just months ago. These voters told the convicted abuser that they have had enough of his violent behavior and his Albany antics. They want him to go away and they want a fresh start. But Monserrate is again willing to be blindly ignorant of what the people actually want," Smith said.
News that Monserrate is seeking a return to public life didn’t sit well with NARAL Pro-Choice New York, which was the first group to call for Monserrate's ouster.
“We maintain that a man who assaulted his girlfriend has no business seeking to represent the women of Queens,” said President Kelli Conlin. “The voters have already made their view perfectly clear. Monserrate should stop wasting his time - and ours.”
