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'Fibber pol's suit: I was accused of tryst with Met
Meet the mess. Brooklyn state Senate candidate Julia Salazar’s already-bizarre backstory got even weirder Thursday with her allegation that she was once accused of having an affair with Mets legend Keith Hernandez — and was arrested for allegedly impersonating his ex-wife.
Salazar, who has come under fire for embellishing her past as a working-class immigrant despite being born into a comfortably middle-class family in the US, made the claim in a 2013 defamation suit against Kai Hernandez in Florida.
Kai had hired then-19-yearold Salazar, a family friend, to house-sit for her in 2010 while Kai was divorcing Keith — then reported the teen to police for allegedly using information gleaned during the stay to access Kai’s bank account.
Kai also told cops she thought Salazar had swiped more than $10,000 in cash, Pottery Barn vouchers and wine from Kai’s Jupiter home — and, according to Salazar’s suit, allegedly claimed the college student was having an affair with the baseball great.
Kai told police the bank alerted her that someone appeared to be trying to access her account over the phone, and when she heard a recording of the alleged impersonator, she instantly identified the voice as Salazar’s.
A police detective assigned to the case told Tablet magazine he also identified the voice as Salazar’s, but the charges were ultimately dropped because the Florida Attorney General’s Office needed more than a voice ID for a conviction.
Salazar subsequently sued Kai over the arrest, claiming the baseball icon’s ex made up the accusations after Salazar found “drug paraphernalia” and guns while minding the house and told Keith about them.
Salazar claims in her suit that Kai “orchestrated a scheme whereby a female who sounded like Julia would attempt to access” the account to set up Salazar as revenge “for interfering with her affairs and pending divorce.”
Julia even recruited a voicerecognition expert to argue that the woman who called the bank was actually Kai and not Salazar.
Kai’s attorney says her client never accused Salazar of having an affair with Keith, and the political hopeful made the claim in her defamation suit only to try to prove malice.
The suit dragged on for years and Kai ultimately agreed to settle rather than go to trial in 2017 while she was battling cancer, with her insurer paying out $20,000, her lawyer told Tablet.
Salazar’s attorney didn’t quite see it that way.
“Kai Hernandez’s bizarre and fraudulent attempts to defame and victimize Julia were recognized as baseless by the authorities, who declined to file charges, and this matter was resolved with a monetary settlement of $20,000 in Julia’s favor,” her lawyer, Adam Hecht, in a statement Thursday. “Keith, Kai and Julia agree that there was no affair.”
Keith Hernandez, now a Mets TV announcer, did not return requests for comment.
Salazar, who shot to prominence after the success of fellow insurgent socialist candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is already facing criticism after portraying herself as a Colombian-born “proud immigrant” from a working-class family — only for her relatives to reveal she was born into a middleclass household in Florida.