'Huge price': LA pol whines about her suffering after calling rival's Black son a 'monkey'

A year after the Los Angeles City Council's president engaged in a secretly-recorded conversation in which she called the Black son of a colleague a “monkey,” she told Telemundo she’s paid a “huge, huge price.”

Nury Martinez succumbed to a torrent of outrage and quit her plum position once the recording of the 2021 closed-door meeting was leaked and released publicly.

"I let go of my position as the first Latina president of the City Council," she told the outlet, maintaining that she is certainly not racist. "I paid a huge, huge, huge price for the insensitive comments I made."

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In the leaked audio recording from October 2021, released publicly by the Los Angeles Times, Martinez along with Councilmembers Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León and L.A. County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera were huddling about redrawing of districts.

Martinez, who is a Democrat and of Mexican ancestry, knocked her opponent, Councilmember Mike Bonin, who is White, over the rearing of his Black son, who she said he paraded around like an "accessory."

"They're raising him like a little White kid," Martinez says in the audio recording. "I was like, 'This kid needs a beatdown. Let me take him around the corner and then I'll bring him back."'

Martinez also called Bonin’s son "parese changuito," which is Spanish for "that little monkey," and "su negrito," which loosely translates to something similar to "little Black slave."

In the Telemundo interview, Martinez tried to explain that the phrase "parece changuito", which roughly translates to "looks like a little monkey," was actually not meant to be a slight against the skin color of the boy.

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It was instead a "horrible joke," she told the outlet.

So far, charges haven't been brought by the Los Angeles Police Department over the audio recording, but officials confirmed that they are "in communication with the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office" and "actively following up on requests for additional information made by the District Attorney's Office," according to a release by LAPD Chief Michael Moore.

The case has been changing hands between departments.

Just last week, a spokeswoman for District Attorney George Gascón’s office confirmed to the L.A. Times it sent the case back to Los Angeles police for “further investigation."