Jockey Stewart Elliott, assaulted, threatened to kill girlfriend
truth and justice
Jockey's track record in N.J.: assaults, threats
Published in the Asbury Park Press 5/12/04
By TOM TRONCONE
and BILL HANDLEMAN
STAFF WRITERS
WALL -- The jockey who won the Kentucky Derby had brushes with the law
in Monmouth County in 2000 and 2001 when he stayed with his
then-girlfriend while he was riding at Monmouth Park.
ASSOCIATED PRESS photo
Jockey Stewart Elliott stayed in Maria Albano's former home in Wall's
West Belmar section in 2000 and 2001 while he rode at Monmouth Park.
He was arrested twice at the house for assaults and threats against
Albano.
Stewart Elliott, who rode Smarty Jones to victory at Churchill Downs
on May 1, pleaded guilty in July 2001 to charges of simple assault and
criminal mischief stemming from two incidents involving the
girlfriend, Maria Albano, at her home in the West Belmar section.
The revelations come on the heels of news of Elliott's September 2001
guilty plea in the savage beating of a friend, Alexander Kovalik, in
Burlington County. He hit the man with a beer bottle, pool cue and
wooden stool, breaking the man's eye socket. The victim needed 50
stitches in his head, according to Monmouth County prosecutors.
Elliott's problems with the law became news last week when The
Associated Press reported that he failed to disclose the Burlington
County assault to Kentucky and Maryland racing officials in his jockey
applications. Elliott was forced to file an amended application in
Maryland and faces a possible fine in Kentucky.
He is riding Smarty Jones in this Saturday's Preakness Stakes at
Pimlico Race Course in Maryland, the second leg of thoroughbred horse
racing's Triple Crown.
It was unclear yesterday whether Elliott disclosed the Monmouth County
simple assault and criminal mischief charges in his amended
application to race in Maryland. But the jockey now at the center of
the racing world has been cleared to race in The Preakness.
Lawyer: 'Wasn't a crime'
Elliott, 39, of Washington Crossing, Pa., pleaded guilty on July 23,
2001, to the charges, which stemmed from one incident in which he
reportedly punched his ex-girlfriend in the head and another in which
he tried to break down her front door, according to court transcripts
and police reports obtained this week by the Asbury Park Press.
"That was a bad time in my life," Elliott said yesterday. "I don't
want to go back there."
He was ordered to pay more than $1,000 in fines.
His lawyer, John J. Flynn of Manasquan, said yesterday that he did not
think the assault and criminal mischief pleas needed to be disclosed
on the Maryland jockey application.
"He pleaded guilty to some minor charges in municipal court," Flynn
said. "What happened in Wall wasn't a crime."
Maryland officials would not release Elliott's racing application.
Michael Hopkins, executive director of the Maryland Racing Commission,
said the authority was aware of "two problems he had in New Jersey. .
. . That's all I can tell you."
He said he could not elaborate. Maryland racing applications ask
whether a jockey has ever been arrested or convicted of any charge
more severe "than a traffic offense," Hopkins said.
Initially, Elliott was arrested by Wall police in one of the two
incidents on a charge of making terroristic threats against his
ex-girlfriend, a third-degree crime in New Jersey. The charge was
dropped, however, when he was allowed to plead guilty to the two
disorderly persons offenses stemming from the two incidents in 2001.
In Burlington County, Elliott was sentenced to one year of probation
and was ordered to pay $13,900 to cover Kovalik's medical expenses.
The probation term was reduced after he paid the medical bills.
In the disorderly persons offenses in Wall, court and police records
show that the incidents occurred at the 17th Avenue home of Albano.
Assailant was asleep
A police narrative of the June 23, 2000, arrest states that officers
were called to the house around 9 p.m. for a report of a domestic
dispute.
When they arrived at the house, Albano was crying as she sat on the
front stairs of the home with her mother, according to the police
narrative. Patrolman Charles Clark wrote that he "noticed a large
bruise on the left side of her face" and that the "area was beginning
to swell."
When police entered the home, Elliott was asleep in a bedroom, where
he was placed under arrest on a domestic violence charge. When asked
to go with officers to Wall police headquarters, Albano said: "Can't
you just make him leave? If I have him arrested he will kill me,"
according to the report.
Albano told police that when she returned home from her job as a
parimutuel clerk at Monmouth Park, Elliott was intoxicated, and she
asked him to leave. He refused, and minutes later, while Albano was on
the telephone, Elliott ripped the receiver from her hands and punched
her in the face, according to the report.
"I had a black eye," Albano said Monday in an interview with the
Asbury Park Press.
The 5-foot-4, 110-pound Elliott denied the incident to police, saying
he had merely "been tempted to hit her," the police report states.
Albano received a temporary restraining order against Elliott after
the incident.
The report paraphrases an assertion by Albano that Elliott had been
physically abusive to her for six months leading up to the incident
and that he often became violent when he drank. Albano showed police a
bruise on her right thigh that she said happened during a dispute with
Elliott two weeks earlier.
"Also during that dispute two weeks prior, Stewart reportedly held a
knife to Ms. Albano's throat," the report states.
A second arrest
The second Wall arrest occurred in January 2001 after Elliott
attempted to kick down Albano's door after a municipal court date,
according to a second police report. Before arriving at the house, he
had called her several times stating that "he was going to kill her,"
according to the report.
Elliott was charged with criminal mischief, a disorderly persons
offense, and criminal counts of making terroristic threats and
criminal trespass, according to his arrest report.
The Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office reviewed the charges and
remanded them to municipal court, where Elliott was allowed to plead
guilty to simple assault and criminal mischief, according to Robert A.
Honecker Jr., first assistant county prosecutor.
"It doesn't surprise me," Elliott said yesterday when told Albano came
forward with information about the arrests. "She's a very hard person
to figure."
Albano said this week that she first met Elliott in July 1999 at
Monmouth Park. Elliott had just won with a long shot, on which Albano
had bet. Excited, she waited for Elliott after the race to thank him.
After the races that day, they met for a drink, she said.
Within three months, Elliott was moving his things into the house she
owned.
In early 2000, Albano said, she went to Florida to stay with Elliott
in his trailer in Hallandale, near Gulfstream Park, where he was
riding. It was there that the relationship first became strained, she
said.
At the time, Albano said, she was taking care of Elliott's business,
his investments, doing his taxes, helping him with his divorce.
After the Gulfstream meeting ended, Elliott returned to New Jersey.
Soon he would lose the mount on the filly Jostle, the best horse he
ever rode before Smarty Jones, who is trained by John Servis. Servis,
who also trained Jostle, had to take Elliott off the filly after he
was deemed unfit to ride her in a stakes race in New York, where a
prerace physical showed his blood pressure to be too high.
Drinking, arguing
The third incident occurred in August, after Elliott had beaten
Kovalik at Kovalik's home in Springfield, Burlington County. Court
records don't indicate what prompted the beating, except to state that
the two men had been drinking and started arguing.
"I begged him not to go there," Albano said. "I told him, 'You're
trying not to drink, don't go . . .' "
At 7 a.m. the next day, with Elliott asleep on the couch, the police
arrived. Albano remembered that they put yellow tape around the house.
She said she talked to Kovalik on the phone several days later, when
he was still in the hospital: "He told me, 'Please come and see me. I
want you to see what that man is capable of, because he's going to do
the same thing to you.' "
Several attempts yesterday to reach Kovalik were unsuccessful.
Elliott said he thinks Albano is talking about the incidents now
because she wants money from him.
Elliott said that right after he won the Kentucky Derby, Albano called
the jockey's financial adviser. However, the adviser said Albano did
not ask for money.
Elliott said the criminal mischief arrest was entrapment because
Albano called him to her house to pick up a convertible top for his
Corvette -- thereby violating the restraining order.
"Like a fool, I went over there to pick it up," he said. "Next thing I
know, I'm driving back to Pennsylvania and all of a sudden there are
all these police cars behind me."
And the incident with Alexander Kovalik?
"I don't associate with people like that anymore," Elliott said.
Elliott has generally been considered a better-than-average rider in
the mid-Atlantic region for the past 15 years. But he never broke away
from the second-tier racetracks, such as Philadelphia Park, remaining
a big fish in a small pond. In fact, up until April 10, when Smarty
Jones won the Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park, Elliott had never won a
race worth more than $200,000.
Gannett State Bureau writer Carol Comegno contributed to this story.
playintheponies
"truth and justice" <spookys...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:db368d3a.04051...@posting.google.com...
F.H.
>
> Areek! Why don't you just leave the guy alone and let him ride race horses?
> > Published in the Asbury Park Press 5/12/04
> > By TOM TRONCONE
> > and BILL HANDLEMAN
> > STAFF WRITERS
> > WALL -- The jockey who won the Kentucky Derby had brushes with the law
> > in Monmouth County in 2000 and 2001
American journalism circa 2004. Where do they find these *reporters*?
lsj7
He was on the Ken Starr staff and continues looking for a penis to tout.
--
Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their
attention. .If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you
and I, and congress and Assemblies, Judges and governors, shall all
become wolves.
_________Jefferson to Carrington 1787
lsj7
Ken Woodall
rich big shots do not want a nobody horse and trainer to win! Too many
asshole trainers, owners, and breeders in this game.
Karen Chuplis
ken...@webtv.net wrote on 5/14/04 8:47 PM:
> Another year to dig up dirt and intimidate he jocks because the
> rich big shots do not want a nobody horse and trainer to win! Too many
> asshole trainers, owners, and breeders in this game.
>
I'm afraid they are everywhere. Even in the office.
Karen
Ken Woodall
stop any horse frm winning the TC. Lasy year on tv Bailey said Bel did
not have a bias prior to the big 1, after horses backing up all day on
the rail.
Ken Woodall
Ken Woodall
look for him to try to stop SJ from winnng these next 2.
CKR
not a person being beatified on the way to sainthood.
And who among us should cast the first stone?
Who will they dig up dirt about next---Smarty Jones and
his infidelity!
Thomas Schell
anyone...Worry about the state of the world..Thenyou have something to
write about..This place sucks...