(Image via iStock)
Former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Eli Karl Cherkasky is learning the hard way you can’t choke a woman out in a bar and it have no impact on your legal career. The former prosecutor found out earlier this week his law license would be suspended for a period of two months as a result of the 2015 assault.
The penalty for Cherkasky’s behavior imposed by the New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division, First Judicial Department was more severe than what was recommended by the sanctions hearing referee. The referee had only recommended a private sanction, as reported by Bloomberg Law:
A sanctions hearing referee had recommended a private sanction. While the referee said he thought Cherkasky hadn’t issued a sincere apology to the woman, he added that he believed that Cherkasky wouldn’t have assaulted her if he hadn’t been drunk. The referee also found that he had “turned his life around by stopping drinking and taking upon the burden of raising a family,” the court said.
But in lowering the boom on Cherkasky, the appeals court noted the “seriousness of respondent’s assault,” and that he’d been convicted of “criminal obstruction of breathing or blood circulation and assault in the third degree and harassment in the second degree.” And the description of the incident sounds pretty intense:
He had been “drinking heavily for many hours” when he got into a verbal altercation with a woman that ended up getting physical, it said.
According to Cherkasky, the woman hit him in the eye with her arm and then threw a beer at him.
The parties’ joint stipulation of facts said that Cherkasky then knocked the woman “against a railing, tackled her to the floor, kneeled on top of her, grabbed her neck and struck her in the face.”
The court also recognized that Cherkasky has no prior history of disciplinary proceedings and that the incident, though severe in nature, was “aberrational in nature.” However, even “when taking into account the mitigating circumstances, a period of suspension for such an assault is warranted in order to maintain the honor and integrity of the profession and deter others from committing similar misconduct.”
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).