State Senator Hiram Monserrate has been indicted by a Queens grand jury on six counts of assault growing out of an alleged beating of his girlfriend last December, District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced on Monday.

The freshman senator from Jackson Heights/Corona faces seven years in prison on the most serious charges. He is expected to be arraigned on the charges in Supreme Court in Kew Gardens later this week.

The former U.S. Marine and New York City cop, 41, has denied the charges from the beginning and has claimed the pursuit of an indictment by Brown was "politically motivated".

The former City Councilmember, who was in Albany on Monday when the indictment was returned, said again he was not guilty of a crime in a statement he released from the state capital.

"I've said all along this was an accident, he stated. He also said the alleged victim, Karla Giraldo, 29, of Sunnyside, maintained there was no assault. She first claimed in a police report that she was assaulted by Monserrate.

The lawmaker's statement continued, "The district attorney's politically motivated decision to pursue this case doesn't change the fact that this was an accident."

According to radio station WINS, Monserrate's attorneys said they will ask for an independent prosecutor to replace Brown.

Brown said the grand jury charged Monserrate with three counts of second degree assault, a Class D felony, and three counts of third-degree assault, a Class A misdemeanor.

According to the charges, Monserrate assaulted Giraldo during the early morning hours of December 19 in his Jackson Heights apartment. The lawmaker has said he allegedly tripped while bringing Giraldo a glass of water and the broken glass hit her, causing a wound over her left eye.

The second count of the indictment said, "On or about Dec. 19, 2008, ...with the intent to cause physical injury to Karla Giraldo, [the defendant] caused such injury by means of a dangerous instrument, to wit, glass."
Several of the other counts in the indictment repeated the same set of facts without providing further details.
Monserrate took Giraldo to a hospital where doctors put in 25 stitches to close the wound.
Monserrate was arrested later the same day by police officers from the 105th Precinct in Queens Village.
According to the police report, Giraldo initially said she was assaulted after she and Monserrate argued over whether she had been dating another man.

Later on, she changed her story and filed a statement with police saying she did not want to press charges.

Subsequently, as Monserrate continued to maintain that Giraldo suffered a cut accidentally, police discovered evidence, including surveillance videos, of the two in a heated argument in the hallway outside Monserrate's apartment.

With the initial allegations and reports of the incident hanging over him, Monserrate was sworn in as a state senator in January, along with several other Democrats. The November elections gave Democrats control of the senate for the first time in more than 40 years.

Monserrate was appointed chairman of the senate Consumer Protection Committee. He stepped down from the chairmanship temporarily on Monday, March 23, according to a public relations consultant.