The ex-girlfriend of disgraced pol Hiram Monserrate took another stab at crying in Queens court Friday as jury deliberations began in her samurai-sword case.
It was the second teary day in court for Karla Barba, who is facing up to 25 years prison for a bloody 2016 fight with her fiance in the Jackson Heights home they share with their 4-year-old daughter, Mia.
Barba had burst into tears Thursday on the witness stand, where she claimed that “accidents happen.”
On Friday, she cried again as she saw her fiance, Franklin Larrea — who previously testified in Barba’s defense — enter the courtroom with their little girl.
A court officer whispered something in Barba’s ear, and she pulled herself together.
Her lawyer then began closing arguments, telling jurors again that the pair love each other and that Barba never meant to seriously injure Larrea when she lunged at him, decorative sword in hand, during a domestic dispute.
“She did not unsheathe the sword,” said lawyer Stacey Richman. “It came undone itself” as she swung it a second time.
“This was a crazy, unfortunate accident,” Richman told jurors. “But it wasn’t a crime.”
Richman then used an unfortunate analogy in describing Barba’s mental ability: “She is not the sharpest knife in the drawer.”
But prosecutor Mary Kate Quinn noted that Barba swung three times — first with the sheath on, then twice more after the sheath fell off, causing a potentially deadly gush of bleeding from Larrea’s arm.
“Yes of course accidents happen,” the prosecutor told jurors in her own closings Friday. “People cut their fingers while they are chopping vegetables. I don’t think any one of you is at risk of going home and being accidentally cut with a samurai sword multiple times.”
Barba had been on the other side of a sharp weapon in 2008, when Monserrate was arrested for slashing her in the face with broken glass, an incident she had also claimed at the time was an accident.