At City Council meetings Maria Pereira often lurches back in mock horror at anyone daring to misuse taxpayer dollars, such is the Upper East Side legislator’s performative gamesmanship to make everything about herself.
But she has no issue wasting taxpayer dollars to try to achieve her purposes to delay her election fraud trial and potential memory lapses of witnesses the state has teed up to testify about her alleged absentee ballot abuses, including being in possession of ballots and badgering senior citizens if they don’t vote for her or a candidate of her choice.
Thursday morning, once again, Pereira fired her assigned public defender that costs her no money, Judge Shari A. Murphy granted her a new free lawyer for her next court appearance in a month. Pereira will continue to do this until such time as the judge catches on, the prosecution team screams, or in lieu of that enough time has passed, at taxpayer expense, to achieve her means.
The acidic Pereira is difficult to get along with under any circumstances, so it’s matter of fact for her – no means to afford a lawyer – to can a public defender who provides legal advice against her myopic point of view. Pereira’s capable of making Mr. Rogers rip off his cardigan.
Difficult? Yes. A dummy? She’s not. She will manipulate the system.
Among the handful of political operatives charged by the state in early 2025, stemming from the 2023 mayoral cycle, the three key ones remain: Pereira, City Councilman Alfredo Castillo and ex Democratic Town Committee Vice Chair Wanda Geter-Pataky.
The state has allowed several lesser players to enter pleas without jail time. Prosecutors are not inclined to do the same with the big three. They want jail time for each.
CT Post reporter Ethan Fry was in the courtroom:
In two affidavits concerning Pereira, a woman who lives at the Fireside Apartments on Palisade Avenue said Pereira had forged her signature on a mail-in ballot application. The incident prompted the city’s housing authority to ban Pereira from its properties, a move the City Council member challenged in federal court.
One woman said Pereira knocked on her door in late August 2023 and, when she didn’t answer, Pereira spoke at her through her window, saying, “If you don’t answer the door I’m coming in there,” according to the affidavit.
The woman, who had surgery the day prior, said she wasn’t going to open the door. Pereira then raised the window screen and window and pulled the blinds to the side, the woman told investigators, according to the documents. The woman said she told Pereira, “Do not come through my window, if I have to get up there’s gonna be a problem,” the documents said.
The woman said Pereira left but that she later discovered that a state mail-in voter registration form was wedged between her mailbox and wall, the documents said. The form reportedly already was filled out and the woman’s signature was forged, the affidavit said. Officers looked at the voter registration form, which also had three sticky notes telling the woman to fill out the last four digits of her Social Security number, put the card in her mailbox and to call Pereira when it was complete.
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