Charges downgraded against Staten Island supermarket worker who slapped Giuliani in back for anti-choice stance

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani says the slap he received from a pro-choice supermarket worker shows New York City has turned into the “Wild, Wild West” — but the charges against his assailant were downgraded Monday, with the suspect’s lawyer describing the “assault” as a mere tap on the back.

“He hit me to knock me down,” the 78-year-old Giuliani said of suspect Daniel Gill. “If that doesn’t merit jail time in New York, we’re in the Wild, Wild West.”

Giuliani stressed that he could have fallen and died, adding that an elderly uncle died from a fall.

“I got hit on the back as if a boulder hit me,” Giuliani claimed. “It hurt tremendously. I did not know what it was. I had no idea what it was. And all of a sudden I heard someone yell something at me, dirty curse words and some more dirty curse words as he retreated, ran away. Then he turned around and said I was a woman-killer.”

But Daniel Gill’s lawyer Susan Platis told a judge in Staten Island Criminal Court the slap “appears to be a tap on the back” and that the only threat came afterward when someone with Giuliani followed Gill, poked him in the chest and threatened him.

Gill, who at 39 is half Giuliani’s age, was initially charged by police with felony assault because the victim is older than 65.

But the Staten Island district attorney’s office decided instead on misdemeanor assault plus two other misdemeanors, for menacing and harassment.

The former mayor was campaigning with his son Andrew, a Republican candidate for governor, when he used the bathroom in a ShopRite in the Charleston section of Staten Island Sunday. That’s when Gill struck the elder Giuliani across the back and allegedly said “What’s up, scumbag?”

Gill told Giuliani his pro-life stance kills women, an apparent reference to the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v Wade.

“He kept cursing, he wouldn’t stop,” Giuliani said. “He kept menacing and threatening me. So I said let’s get him arrested, let’s make an example out of him because this is going on too much all around the country.”

Assistant District Attorney Darren Albanese said Giuliani complained of “substantial pain” in his back, “took a step forward losing his balance” and might need to see a doctor.

Albanese wondered in court if Gill “would use the good judgement required to return to court when told to do so” given that the incident occurred in front of many witnesses.

But Gill’s lawyer noted Gill has no prior arrests and argued he should not be subject even to supervised release.

The video of the encounter, she said, “is actually not helpful to the prosecution.”

“I think it actually shows a tap on the back, which is not criminal conduct,” Platis said in court. “There’s no intent here to harm anyone. [Giuliani] may have been surprised and stunned being touched in the back ... but he’s a public figure, Your Honor. Being spoken to and things being said to him should be of no surprise and should be anticipated.”

Judge Gerianne Abriano released Gill without bail but issued an order of protection prohibiting him from going near the former Manhattan U.S attorney.

Gill may also now be without a job, with Tom Mannix, the brother of the ShopRite’s owner, saying Gill has been suspended, pending termination.

Gill, outside the ground-floor Staten Island apartment where he lives alone, said he had been advised not to talk to press.

Pressed, he said he has a degree in communication, used to work in radio and now considers himself “the face of this economy.”

“I have a college degree,” he said, “and I’m working a minimum wage job.”

Earlier, in a virtual press conference, Giuliani talked tough.

“I don’t care for me,” he said. “I can take care of myself. This little punk isn’t going to hurt me. The Mafia threatened me twice. ... He did it for a specific reason — because I’m pro-life. I gotta get hit because I’m pro-life?”

Giuliani served as former President Donald Trump’s personal attorney and has featured prominently in the ongoing hearings in the House of Representatives about the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Giuliani is suspended from practicing law in New York for promoting false conspiracy theories that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump.

While describing the grocery store kerfuffle, Giuliani also railed against Mayor Adams.

“We have an epidemic of crime in this city, when people are dying and he’s partying,” Giuliani said of the current mayor. “I’ll tell you I was in the basement of Gracie Mansion until four in the morning. Right now, your record is worse than de Blasio. ... How can you go to the parties when your people are dying? And by the way, the majority of them are Black people. I cared a lot more about them than you do with all your bull — I saved their lives.”

Adams fired back through a spokesman.

“Rudy Giuliani is a national embarrassment who supported a former president that allowed gun violence to explode exponentially over the course of his four years in office,” Adams spokesman Fabien Levy said. “Adams has made public safety his top priority, and that is why we have seen shootings go down for 10 weeks straight, with shootings down 30% in both April and May compared to the previous year.”

With Michael Gartland