Clueless Espada maintains a rosary outlook

Last Updated: 1:02 AM, May 12, 2012

Posted: 1:02 AM, May 12, 2012

Andrea Peyser

Enough is enough! It’s time to shut down Cirque du Pedro!
The staid halls of Brooklyn federal court have transformed into a circus, complete with soothsayers and clowns. The only thing missing is the elephant act.
Yesterday marked the 10th day in which a jury, composed at least partly of the blind, deaf and fatally stupid, failed to decide if former state Sen. Pedro Espada Jr. is the despicably amoral love child of Al Capone and Kim Kardashian.
For days, Pedro & Pals have treated the courtroom like a personal playground, making a mockery of the proceedings while behaving like victims of some monstrous injustice.

And rather than see through the desperate antics, jurors have only prolonged the madness through silly squabbling and talk of partial verdicts.
Get a grip!
With a perpetual “What, me worry?’’ grin plastered on his piggish face, Espada is the former Senate majority leader charged with swindling taxpayers out of more than $500,000 to pay for such classy perks as a sushi feast, a picket fence for his house and even a lowly pack of chewing gum.
Mountains of evidence presented at trial have demonstrated that Pedro and his son, Pedro Gautier Espada, ripped off the government-financed Soundview health center in The Bronx that he controlled, hiring relatives and friends to do-nothing jobs at his personal piggy bank. He drove the clinic into such financial crisis, the wellness of poor folks who Espada pretended to represent is now threatened.
His defense? Well, Espada hasn’t had much of a defense.
In April, Espada cynically evoked racism as the cause of his troubles, and not his own ruthless greed.
He sat at the defense table paging through the Bible. He also read, in full view of gullible jurors, “Black Robes, White Justice’’ by the late Judge Bruce “Turn ’Em Loose’’ Wright. He also read “Substance of Hope’’ by William Jelani Cobb, a book about President Obama’s election.
“I’m a deep guy,” Espada mused when asked about his choice of literature.
On Thursday, he whipped out a rosary. He said it was to combat witchcraft that prosecutors were using to convince jurors to convict him.
“We’re in the homestretch, and so we’re pulling [the rosary] out because we know that the prosecutors are sitting in a certain seating arrangement that I recognize as being a certain ritual,’’ said Pedro the Weird.
Now he is charging that prosecutors are using “black magic’’ to nail his sorry behind. And his supporters, including his wife and two body guards, have to wear red to get a fair shake! Brother.
Pedro’s people topped themselves yet again with the unmitigated gall to talk directly to jurors — signalling through their flashy mode of dress that Pedro was not just innocent, but persecuted.
“Natural stones and colors carry energy . . . red is for protection,” said Pedro’s pal, ex-staffer, and self-described New Age “raw foodist” Monica Harris.
“Red is a color of protection, and it also opens paths,” said Harris the Kook, who wore a red and black dress and massive silver and turquoise Nepalese necklace.
Espada introduces her to reporters as as “my energy source.”
Well, Espada’s courtroom theatrics are clearly having an effect.
The joke is on you, dear taxpayer.
It’s time to end the nonsense and get to work.
It’s time to lock up Espada.
He ripped you off. He made a mockery of the system.
Don’t let him get away with it.
andrea.peyser@nypost.com

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