(This is a copy of my notes from the day that Dr. Michael Abbey-Mensa testified at Cesar Rodriguez's trial. Abbey-Mensa was the Emergency Room doctor from Woodhull Hospital who treated Nixzmary Brown in Nov. of 2005 for the gash on her forhead. My notes for Cesar's trial are not as detailed as my notes for Nixzaliz's trial.)
By: Dovesblood
The emergency room doctor who saw Nixzmary Brown at Woodhull hospital,(seven weeks before she died) because she had a small cut on her forehead showed up in court with, -surprise, surprise- his lawyer! The lawyer was a tall, light skinned African-American. He sat in the back row on the right hand side of the courtroom when Abbey-Mensa was testifying.
Dr. Michael Abbey-Mensa had a really thick accent. I think it was Haitian but I'm not sure. A couple of times during testimony, the court reporter had to stop the proceedings and ask him to repeat the word. When he repeated some words, she still couldn't understand and the judge had to translate for her. That happened alot.
To the majority of questions posed to him by Cesar's attorney, Jeffrey Schwartz, about what happened that day, he kept answering "I don't recall". He said that over and over and over again. When Schwartz asked him to look at the hospital file in front of him to see if that refreshes his memory, he told Schwartz that the file says such and such but, "I don't recall". That was his mantra throughout the testimony. I thought to myself, "if you don't recall anything then why the Hell are you here"? Afterwards, in the hall, the reporters were talking amongst themselves, expressing disbelief at him saying, "I don't recall" to almost everything. I guess his lawyer trained him well. He didn't even recall Nixzmary Brown being there, saying the file says she was there and he sees lots of people!
To a couple of long questions Schwartz posed to him, he said, "I don't understand the question". Schwartz would have to rephrase it in a "baby way". Now, I know lawyers can sometimes ask questions in complicated ways, but even I understood those questions. I thought to myself "if you don't understand the question, then how the Hell are you a doctor"?
I shuddered to think that this quack was anywhere near my precious little Nixzmary.
When Schwartz asked if Nixzmary was checked for bruises, Abbey-Mensa said it's standard procedure and that an intern would have done it. He said that's why it wasn't written down, because it's standard.
At one point, Schwartz asked him sarcastically, "are you training the intern or is the intern training you"? That illicited some chuckles from the audience and shocked looks from the jury. "OBJECTION"! said D.A. Ama Dwimoh (ja-mo), as she stood up from her desk. "This is his witness".!?
Schwartz also asked if he held the intern in "high esteem". Abbey- Mensa replied "average esteem" illiciting chuckles from the younger reporters at how ridiculous he sounded. "average esteem"? chuckled one reporter to the other.
Abbey-Mensa also stated that Nixzaliz Santiago was also in the hospital and that he referred Nixzmary to a maxillo-facial surgeon for stitches. I can only pray that, that surgeon wasn't as dumb as Abbey-Mensa and that he was gentle with Nixzmary so she wasn't in to much pain. I'll never know.
First that animal Cesar causes the cut on her head and now that poor baby has got to endure the pain of getting stitches. I hope, upstate, some inmate runs a needle through Cesar's head a couple of times so he can feel what he put Nixzmary through.
D.A. Linda Weinman, did the cross examination. She suggested that the reason nothing was written down in regards to Nixzmary having no bruises is because the hospital never checked. If they had checked, they would've seen bruises and it would have been written down. That was mistake #1 that they made.
She also grilled him about seeing an emaciated 7 year old girl with a cut and not reporting it. That was mistake #2. No wonder Abbey-Mensa showed up with a lawyer!
Any human being with common sense who sees a 7 year old girl looking like a skeleton with a cut on her forehead would immediately be picking up a phone. Apparently, not this dummy.
Weinman asked about him not reporting suspected child abuse, "that was a mistake, wasn't it doctor"? to which lame brain responded, "I don't know". I sat in that courtroom and my jaw dropped. I thought "are you kidding me ? what the f*ck do you mean you don't know" ?
He had to walk right past me on the way out. It was all I could do to keep from whispering "effing quack" but I didn't want to cause a mistrial. This guy's a complete joke. He can't speak English very well, doesn't recall anything, can't understand questions, never checked Nixzmary for bruises,and never reported suspected child abuse which he's legally mandated to do. If these are the sort of people Woodhull Hospital hires, then maybe the community should go somewhere else.
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