Rudy Giuliani hosted a press conference Monday on Facebook to discuss being slapped on the back by a ShopRite employee. According to Deadline, Giuliani was “irate” upon learning that the charges against his alleged attacker were downgraded. The former NYC mayor and Trump attorney was in a ShopRite on Staten Island on Sunday. “I went to the men’s room, walked back with a group of friends and all of a sudden, without any warning, was hit very, very hard on the back … to such an extent that it knocked me back about two steps,” Giuliani said in the press conference. The incident was captured on store surveillance video. In it, a man in a ShopRite uniform approaches Giuliani from behind, slaps him on the back, and confronts him verbally before being ushered away by other store personnel.
“The videotape that you see is probably a little deceptive, Giuliani said, since it does not show him stumbling. According to a criminal complaint, the slap resulted in “redness, swelling, and substantial pain to the back and left side of his body,” per ABC7. Daniel Gill, 39, was immediately arrested and charged with second-degree assault, a felony. But at arraignment on Monday, the judge downgraded the charges to misdemeanors and released Gill on his own recognizance. Lawyers for Gill put out a statement saying the video shows that he “merely patted Mr. Giuliani, who sustained nothing remotely resembling physical injuries, without malice to simply get his attention.” (More Rudy Giuliani stories.)
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