Ex-New York ADA Suspended Two Months for Drunken Assault in Bar

A New York appeals court suspended an ex-Manhattan prosecutor for two months for assaulting a woman at a bar, imposing a harsher sanction than recommended.

The evidence “clearly established the seriousness of respondent’s assault,” the state Supreme Court Appellate Division, First Judicial Department, said in its Tuesday opinion.

Eli Karl Cherkasky was convicted in 2015 of “criminal obstruction of breathing or blood circulation and assault in the third degree and harassment in the second degree,” the court recounted. 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 noted that Cherkasky had admitted to the conduct and accepted responsibility for it, expressed remorse for his treatment of the woman, and admitted that his conduct was “unacceptable,” and “unbecoming of an assistant district attorney,” the court said.

The one-time New York County assistant district attorney now works at the international risk management firm Exiger LLC, according to New York State court system records. The firm was co-founded by his father, Michael.

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.

Cherkasky does have an unblemished disciplinary history and character testimony contending that what happened was “aberrational in nature,” it said.

But 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,” the court concluded.

The case is In re Cherkasky, 2020 BL 87746, N.Y. App. Div., No. M-3831, 3/10/20.