The sordid saga of expelled Sen. Hiram Monserrate and the girlfriend he slashed in the face began a new chapter yesterday — with the couple kissing and strolling out of a Queens courthouse hand in hand.
They smooched and cooed after convincing state Supreme Justice William Erlbaum to lift an order of protection that barred Monserrate from having anything to do with Karla Giraldo.
“I love him, and I want to be with him,” Giraldo, speaking in Spanish, insisted to the judge through an interpreter.
Erlbaum — who spared Monserrate jail time last year when he convicted him of a misdemeanor rather than a felony — asked Giraldo if she and Monserrate have plans for the future.
“We want to give the relationship another [chance]. We’ve been separated too long. We were planning to get married,” said Giraldo, sporting a tight, navy-blue pantsuit.
The pair hadn’t been together since Monserrate was arrested in December 2008 on charges of attacking Giraldo with a broken drinking glass in his Jackson Heights apartment.
Prosecutors said he flew into a rage after finding another man’s business card in her purse.
The judge asked Giraldo if she could stand up to Monserrate, an ex-Marine and former cop, in the event he turned violent.
“I am a woman, 31 years old, and will make my own decision,” she said.
Asked what she would do if he became abusive, she replied, “I would stop it or end it.”
When Erlbaum had sentenced Monserrate to probation in December, he also told Giraldo she needed counseling to deal with abuse.
Yesterday, she showed the judge a letter from a psychiatrist who concluded that she was not under the “control” of Monserrate, as prosecutors alleged.
“There is no indication that you are functioning under any coercion or undue influence of any other party,” the psychiatrist wrote her.
Prosecutors had argued that Monserrate shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the woman, whose badly slashed face took 40 stitches after he dragged her through a hallway of his apartment building.
Erlbaum, who told Monserrate to “curb your anger” when he sentenced him, loosened the terms of the protection order. He also warned him to change his ways.
“You will be a stronger, more effective person,” Erlbaum said.
The judge warned Monserrate he faces additional charges if he harasses or abuses Giraldo.
The couple left court without talking to reporters, but Monserrate’s lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, said the new order means, “They can do anything they want to do. They could be together. They could marry, go to dinner, whatever they like to do.”
As for marriage, he said, “They’ve only spoken to each other one time in the last year and a half — four minutes ago.”
Last February, two months after Monserrate’s sentencing, his fellow state senators voted 53-8 to oust him.