Metro

Courageous ‘victim’ at center of Paterson scandal

The woman at the center of the latest scandal to roil Albany — which has prompted calls for Gov. Paterson to step down — is a hardworking single mom from The Bronx who successfully battled cancer, friends said.

Sherr-una Booker, 40, who lives in Baychester with her 13- and 19-year- old sons, is an assistant director and customer-service manager at Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center in The Bronx.

She was briefly married in the early 1990s to a man she met as a freshman at Brooklyn College, but divorced in 1994. Booker and her ex-husband, Mark Cottle, have one child together. Her younger son is from another relationship.

“It didn’t work out for us because we were too young, and too stupid,” said Cottle, who now lives in Grand Rapids, Mich.

But he described his ex in glowing terms.

“She’s good people. She’s a good woman . . . to have in your corner,” said Cottle. “She’s always a person who tried to strive to better themselves.”

He was stunned to learn that his wife had accused David Johnson, her live-in boyfriend for years and a top aide to Gov. Paterson, of violently assaulting her in their home, where his son also lives.

“She never told me anything like that,” said Cottle. “I would have done something.”

The last time he saw Booker was in August, at her mother’s home, shortly after Booker turned 40. At the time, there was no hint of any problems, he said.

Booker dated Johnson for close to a decade, and she has said they lived together for four years.

She was well known to many people who worked on Paterson’s campaign, sources said.

A few years ago, she was treated for cancer, friends said.

Johnson has been suspended without pay pending an investigation into whether the State Police or Paterson pressured Booker to stop cooperating with authorities in the alleged domestic-violence incident.

In 2007, Booker sued the owner of the Bronx apartment complex where she lives, claiming she had been seriously injured in a Dec. 7, 2006, fall on a sidewalk in front of the building.

The lawsuit was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum, said Anna Higgins, a lawyer for the landlord.

Additional reporting by Jennifer Fermino

dan.mangan@nypost.com