I was drunk.
I don’t remember.
He was a saint.
An ornery Karla Giraldo was dragged onto the stand yesterday to testify against her boyfriend, state Sen. Hiram Monserrate, and put on a surly, diva-like display — only to dissolve later in a whimpering meltdown triggered by a video of his lurid violence.
Giraldo, who had to be hauled into Queens Supreme Court under subpoena even though she’s the victim in the stabbing last Dec. 19, was so combative with the prosecuting attorney that he asked that she be treated as a hostile witness.
She told the court she had no love for the prosecution or the cops.
“I didn’t trust them anymore . . . [the prosecutors], the detectives who were harassing me, they were searching for me all over the place,” she testified when asked why she wouldn’t cooperate.
Assistant District Attorney Scott Kessler declined even to ask her about the alleged attack itself — in which prosecutors say Monserrate slashed her with glass and left her with 30 facial stitches — because he said she wouldn’t tell what really happened.
“I don’t want to adopt her answers,” he said. “Because it’s not the prosecution’s position, nor did I believe I’d be offering truthful testimony to the court.”
She was also caught bending the truth as if she herself was a politician.
She told a story about how she had gotten so drunk in the hours before the Democratic senator allegedly stabbed her in the face that she had to be helped home from a party by a friend.
“I was drunk,” she said on the witness stand. “And that’s why my girl cousin was bringing me up to the apartment.”
Oops! That didn’t jibe with the story she told a grand jury, Kessler told the court. She earlier claimed she only had a couple of glasses of wine before the alleged attack and wasn’t intoxicated.
Yesterday, however, she said had actually been drinking before the party as well.
As she took the stand, she refused to answer basic questions about such things as her income, prompting Kessler to ask that she be treated as a hostile witness.
Judge William Erlbaum refused, saying: “Americans are not so totally compliant that they genuflect to lawyers’ questions. Her behavior is not that inappropriate.”
He added: “Karla Giraldo doesn’t have to take a course in legal etiquette to be a witness.”
Although she was not “hostile” under a legal definition, she sure wasn’t being friendly.
In her testimony, she tried to whitewash her recollection of the moment that allegedly sent Monserrate, a former cop, into a fury.
According to prosecutors, the senator found a Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association card belonging to another officer in her purse. He then allegedly became so livid, he eventually cut her twice above the right eye with a piece of broken glass.
But on the witness stand, Giraldo said Monserrate was only a “little bit jealous” after finding the card. She also said he wasn’t suspiciously searching in her bag; he was only helpfully putting his own PBA card in her wallet.
She said he didn’t even raise his voice when he found the other man’s card.
“It was normal men’s [voice],” she said. “It’s always strong.”
She added that it was actually she who got angry when he tried to throw out the card.
“I think he got a little bit jealous and that’s why he was going to throw it in the garbage,” she said.
Giraldo had a card in her purse from Officer Walter Loor, a 17-year veteran, who gave it to her when they met once, but now says he doesn’t know her.
Giraldo was later shown the video of the aftermath of the assault, which was captured on a security camera. The video has been considered one of the most important pieces of evidence against Monserrate. It apparently shows him dragging her from the Jackson Heights apartment building after the attack.
Giraldo didn’t want to see it.
“I can’t go on,” she said, weeping, prompting the judge to call for a recess so she could compose herself.
When they came back after five minutes, she said: “Your honor, I really don’t want to watch that video. It makes me ill.”
She told the court she could hardly describe what happened in the video because at the time she was so drunk, although she was sure that the injury she suffered was not the result of domestic violence.
“This is an accident and I’m telling the truth,” she said.
She then claimed she was seen struggling with the hulking Monserrate in the video only because he was heroically taking her to the hospital after she refused to go because of her fear of needles.
“He was not dragging me,” she told the court. “He was just pulling me to take me to the hospital for my own good. And thanks to him, I’m all right and my face is all right.”
Monserrate’s attorney, Joe Tacopina, said he was surprised she wasn’t directly asked about the attack and said yesterday: “To call her as a witness and not ask her about the incident is mind-boggling.”
Giraldo also told the court she didn’t remember asking Monserrate to call 911, even though, as the prosecutor pointed out, she told a grand jury she asked for the call.
She later insisted she never told doctors she was assaulted by Monserrate, even though medical staff have already testified she told them she was attacked.
She claimed yesterday they never asked her about how she got hurt.
“. . . I was drunk, I was nervous, I was bleeding. My mind was in another planet,” she said.