NY Assemblyman Alec Brook-Krasny hired Jan. 6 riot enthusiast after voicing concern about her

A Brooklyn woman who cheered on the pro-Trump mob that staged a deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol was hired by state Assemblyman Alec Brook-Krasny’s office earlier this year — after the Republican lawmaker publicly voiced concern about her ties to the January 2021 riot, according to records reviewed by the Daily News.

The Assembly staff directory records, which were provided by a source, show that the woman, Katherine Khatari, is employed as a “constituent services manager” in Brook-Krasny’s district office in Coney Island.

The records do not specify Khatari’s start date — but it must have been at some point after Jan. 12.

On that day, Brook-Krasny confirmed he had planned to hire Khatari, but was reconsidering the move after The News alerted him to the fact that on Jan. 6, 2021 she posted approvingly on Facebook of the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol. She made those posts after she attended the pre-Capitol riot rally that former President Donald Trump held outside the White House.

“I am just now hearing about her past involvement in the January 6th protest and that is something I take extremely seriously,” Brook-Krasny said in a statement at the time. “There have been conversations about her joining my office and I will take her past actions into serious consideration should a determination be made on her employment.”

A spokesman for Brook-Krasny did not immediately return a request for comment Friday on what made him hire Khatari anyway. A message sent to Khatari’s Assembly email address was not immediately returned.

There’s no indication that Khatari joined the Trump supporters who broke into the Capitol on Jan. 6 in a violent attempt to block Congress from certifying President Biden’s election. As first reported by The News in 2021, though, Khatari took to Facebook as the attack was underway, writing in a post: “The Patriots took back the house.”

In a more recent incident stirring controversy, Khatari was kicked off a Zoom meeting held Wednesday night by the Community Education Council for southern Brooklyn’s District 20 after she demanded in the chat that a member of the panel “speak English.”

Khatari made the demand after the member, Mei Fang Chen, had delivered an opening statement in Mandarin.

“She should speak English,” Khatari, who attended the meeting in a private capacity, wrote in the chat before calling Chen’s Mandarin remarks “disturbing,” according to a transcript provided by Stephen Stowe, the president of the education council.

Stowe told The News on Friday that Chen is bilingual in English and Mandarin and that he gave her permission to deliver her remarks in Mandarin because “our district is a diverse district and we want everyone to participate.” He said another member was also translating Chen’s remarks into English in real time.

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“[Khatari] persisted, saying, ‘So and so needs to speak English,’” Stowe said, adding that she was booted from the meeting as a result.

Stowe expressed dismay about Khatari’s rant.

“Pardon the expression, but what she was saying is complete bulls–t,” he said. “I’m a huge proponent of having our council reflect our community. It’s pretty disappointing.”

Neither Brook-Krasny’s office nor Khatari immediately returned requests for comment about the Wednesday night incident.

Brook-Krasny took his seat in the Assembly after beating Democratic Assemblywoman Mathylde Frontus in last year’s election.

He used to serve in the Assembly as a Democrat until he resigned in 2015 to become an executive at a pharmaceutical company. While in that position, Brook-Krasny was charged with federal bribery charges for allegedly helping orchestrate an illegal pill mill. He was acquitted of those charges after his attorney argued the city’s Special Narcotics Prosecutor didn’t have standing to try the case.

Last month, Brook-Krasny came under fire from his Democratic colleagues in the Assembly for railing against transgender youth, declaring in a speech at a Community Board 10 meeting that it is “absolutely incredibly wrong” to allow young people to choose their gender identity.