NY lawyer with CP accused of molesting judge

From the NY Daily News:

A disabled lawyer accused of touching the rear end of a Taxi and Limousine Commission judge is blaming it on his cerebral palsy.

Queens prosecutors have charged Hippocrate Mertsaris (pictured), 35, with sexual abuse and sexual harassment for allegedly grabbing the woman's inner thigh and buttocks during a meeting in her Kew Gardens offices.

Mertsaris' lawyer, Wyatt Gibbons, admits his client touched the woman but denies it was sexual.

"He whacked her in the butt but it wasn't sexual abuse," Gibbons said. "He has spastic movements."

Gibbons says the East Elmhurst man uses a wheelchair and gets around with the help of a health care aide.

"If he was starving to death and had a hamburger in front of him he couldn't lean over to pick it up," Gibbons said.

A hearing on the matter is scheduled for June 15.