A Staten Island woman trying to break free from her abusive husband — an NYPD captain — received no help from the department or a judge handling her divorce, according to bombshell legal papers filed this week.

In January 2017, after three years of being abused by her often-drunk husband, Cathleen Kenny asked Staten Island Matrimonial Court Judge Catherine DiDomenico for an order of protection against Capt. Christopher Monahan while the divorce proceeding continued.

DiDomenico denied the request, claiming that she “didn’t want to create a hardship for his position with the police department,” according to court papers filed with the city controller this week.

Instead, the judge turned to Monahan, ordering, “No drinking inside the marital home,” the lawsuit states.

That order was obeyed for about two weeks, Kenny said.

About a month later, Kenny was arrested on an allegedly trumped-up assault charge filed by Monahan, the vice president of the NYPD’s Captains Endowment Association, the union that represents the department’s higher ranks.

“Usually when this happens, it’s the reverse. The wife accuses the husband of assault,” said Kenny, who is suing the city, the NYPD and the union in her notice of claim. “I gave the NYPD every opportunity to correct this injustice, but they continually swept it under the blue carpet.”

Her attorney, Eric Sanders, was appalled by DiDomenico’s ruling.

“I thought you go to the courts to get justice,” said Kenny’s attorney Eric Sanders. “How is that justice when (Kenny) has a legitimate safety concern and a judge is worried about how that’s going to hurt Monahan’s career?”

As vice president of the union, Monahan, 48, was no longer on the street and didn’t need a firearm, Sanders said.

“All he’s doing is going to the union hall,” he said. “The only thing this judge enforced was a drinking glass.”

Judge DiDomenico refused to comment on the divorce when approached outside her home Friday. The state Office of Court Administration declined to comment on pending litigation.

Kenny, 49, also declined to talk about the judge’s decision, since her divorce is still pending.

Since 2014, she and two her teenage children have been subjected to violent drunken outbursts, verbal assaults and domestic violence, according to the suit.

And the department did nothing to stop it, Kenny said.

“The NYPD is like a blue mob,” she said Friday. “They know that domestic violence is an issue in some of their households and it’s covered up. The behavior is condoned and they took no action in my case.”

Kenny, an international flight attendant, is suing the department for $15 million, according to a notice of claim filed Thursday.

She nearly lost her job when, after brushing by her husband in their home, Monahan filed assault charges against her.

With those accusations hanging over her head, Kenny wasn’t allowed to leave the country, affecting her livelihood.

“I was about three months away from losing my job,” she said. “As an international flight attendant, every day I go to work, I leave the country. I was afraid to leave the country because of the pending criminal charges. It was an egregious violation of my civil rights.”

Her son allegedly witnessed the incident and wanted to testify on behalf of his mom, according to sources with knowledge of the case.

But his dad refused to let the son talk — and the charges were ultimately dropped because Monahan was being uncooperative, sources said.

Kenny said her marriage fell apart shortly after her husband was elected to the union’s board. At the time, she had just gotten out of the hospital following a medical procedure and he refused to help her open a prescription pill bottle.

When she asked her son to open it for her, Monahan called the police on her, accusing her of child endangerment, she said.

“At about midnight, the police department arrived and had me get out of my bed, endangering my health and questioned me for four hours,” she said. “There were multiple levels of police supervisors in my home, but nothing ever came of it. It was all swept under the rug.”

Things quickly fell apart after that, she said. In 2016, her husband filed for divorce. The two are currently separated.

In March 2017, Monahan boasted that he was “banging three women on the side,” according to court papers.

“The police department had been part of my family for 18 years, through my whole marriage,” she said. “When I met him he was in narcotics. I made a lot of sacrifices so he could advance in his career.

“I was very proud of him, but as he climbed higher in the ranks, things began to unravel,” she said.

Yet despite the abuse she received, she never filed charges against Monahan, she said.

Sanders said Kerry is another victim of what he calls the “white-shirt immunity machine” — the NYPD’s highest ranks covering for each other, even when one is accused of domestic violence.

“The NYPD and mayor keep saying that the department’s discipline system is ‘great,’ but cops are using their powers to falsely arrest people,” he said. “How is that great?”

The NYPD did not immediately return a request for comment. City attorneys were reviewing the notice of claim, the city Law Department said.

Captains union head Roy Richter said the allegations “are works of fiction.”

“(They) will be appropriately heard in an upcoming divorce trial,” he said.

Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nypd-captain-wife-claims-abused-dept-blue-mob-article-1.3880016