A Long Island man was charged Wednesday with punching Donald Sterling’s ex-gal pal V. Stiviano in the face during a weekend dustup in the Meatpacking District.
Dominick Diorio, 40, of Old Bethpage, allegedly accosted the woman who brought the LA Clippers owner down as she walked past the Gansevoort Hotel on Sunday.
He was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on one count of misdemeanor assault in the third degree.
“We’re investigating possible hate crime charges in this matter,” said Assistant DA Carolina Holderness.
“The defendant and another unapprehended individual followed her down the street while repeatedly calling her a ‘[n-word] bitch’ and a ‘whore,’” according to the criminal complaint.
“The defendant reached through an open taxi window and struck her in the face with his closed fist.”
Diorio and his pal then spat on Stiviano, authorities said, before adding a final verbal blast.
“’Yeah, I’ll f–king hit a girl. I’ll hit you, you n—-r bitch,’” the DA quoted Diorio as saying.
“I am further informed by Ms. Stiviano that the defendant’s actions caused her to suffer swelling and redness to her right cheek and substantial pain.”
The suspect was injured when some passers-by of the brouhaha pummeled him, law enforcement sources said. Cops found him sprawled on the ground, drunk and bleeding, and took him to the hospital.
He told cops, “I slipped and fell,” according to Holderness.
“A girl threw a phone at me, and I ducked and slipped and hit my to head,” he allegedly told police, according to prosecutors.
Diorio was released without bail on Wednesday.
He did not have to enter a plea during his initial court appearance, but defense lawyer David Scott Smith insisted his client is innocent.
“My client vehemently denies each and every allegation that she has made against him,” Smith said.
The defense lawyer said he was grateful that hate crime charges were off the table, for now.
“I’d like to commend the District Attorney’s Office for deciding not to prosecute my client for a hate crime and to consent to his release without bail,” Smith said.
“I’m confident that as this case goes forward and the investigation continues, that Miss Stiviano’s allegations will likewise begin to fail and at the end of the day, the assault charge will be dismissed as well.”
He accused Stiviano of seeking publicity for an event that never happened.
“Simply put, a credible victim of a crime does not have her attorney call the press before she calls the police,” Smith said.
“Miss Stiviano seems intent on keeping her name in the spotlight. But I can assure you if this case goes to trial, my cross-examination will last longer than her 15 minutes of fame.”
Stiviano’s LA-based lawyer Alaleh Kamran said Diorio’s mouthpiece has to grasp for any possible defense.
“I respect the defense attorney’s strategy and tactics,” she said.
Diorio and a pal apparently recognized Stiviano — who is of black and Latino descent — from her involvement in the NBA race scandal, in which Sterling was forced to sell his basketball team after Stiviano recorded him making racist statements.
At the time, they did not know he had allegedly struck Stiviano. But after she filed a complaint Monday, cops put Diorio in a lineup Tuesday and the California woman identified him, sources said.
Stiviano said nothing after leaving the 6th Precinct in Greenwich Village. Diorio was hit with a felony charge of assault as a hate crime and a charge of harassment.
The middle-aged suspect lives with his parents.
“Wow, I’m not going to tell my wife about this. That’ll just upset her. I don’t know what to do,” the man’s dad told The Post.