NYC court clerk allegedly caught calling defendant ‘N-word’ on hot mic

A Manhattan Family Court clerk was caught on a hot mic allegedly calling a black teenage defendant the N-word, according to the young man’s attorney.The clerk, Donna A. Prainito, who is white, didn’t realize her microphone was on when she used the racial slur to refer to a 15-year-old in a virtual proceeding before Judge Jessica Bourbon Thursday, said his lawyer Holden Thornhill. 

The incident occurred at the end of a plea proceeding when the judge directed Thornhill’s client to alert an Administration for Children’s Services staffer that the hearing was about to end.  “He turns around to do that and as he does that his rear end is now in the camera, inadvertently,” Thornhill recalled in an interview.