US News

DEMS SLAP SENATOR SLUGGO

Hot-headed state Sen. Kevin Parker was stripped of his high-ranking leadership position in Albany yesterday after his arrest for attacking a Post photographer.

Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith took away the Brooklyn Democrat’s role as majority whip, along with his chairmanship of the Energy Committee, as a result of the unprovoked assault.

“These are serious charges which demand the attention of the proper authorities, and my decision today will stand until resolution of the proceedings that [he] faces,” Smith said yesterday.

The demotion will cost Parker the extra $22,000 he earned as whip, Smith said. He retains his $79,500 senator’s salary.

Post photographer William Lopez had been assigned to take a picture of Parker for an exclusive story about foreclosure proceedings against the senator’s $610,000 Flatbush home. The photographer caught up with the angry senator at his mother’s house on Avenue H in Flatbush on Friday night, but Parker flew into a fury.

The rage-filled Parker — who has faced accusations of violence in the past — was arraigned yesterday in Brooklyn Criminal Court for felony criminal mischief and a misdemeanor charge of assault.

He faces up to five years if convicted of the felony.

Parker did not enter a plea at yesterday’s hearing. His lawyer, Lonnie Hart, said his client is innocent and will plead not guilty at his next court appearance, on June 25.

Parker was released on his own recognizance, despite a prosecution request for $1,000 bail.

The bedraggled public servant was dressed in the same silver tunic and matching pants he’d been wearing the night before. He did not speak to reporters before being whisked away in an SUV.

But Hart complained before the hearing that his client deserved the same treatment TV star Kiefer Sutherland received after he allegedly head-butted a fashion designer at a party Monday night.

“Kiefer Sutherland broke someone’s nose and got a desk-appearance ticket,” said Hart. “He was able to surrender himself and walk out a few hours later.”

Friday night, Parker, after being photographed, allegedly chased Lopez down the block but couldn’t catch him. Instead, he circled back to Lopez’s car and sat on the hood.

Lopez got into his car and attempted to leave. But Parker allegedly followed him, forcing his way into the Subaru.

As the two tussled in the car, Parker managed to allegedly kick an inside panel off a door, sprain Lopez’s finger and break the camera’s flash.

Parker finally gave up and got out of the car, but immediately began blaming Lopez for the incident.

“You see this guy? He’s a sellout,” he said to a group of neighbors who had gathered, according to Lopez. ” ‘The Man’ is using him to make me look bad.”

“You all saw him assault me,” he said, then called 911.

But when cops showed up, witnesses corroborated Lopez’s story. The police ended up booking Parker.

It’s not Parker’s first brush with the law, nor the first time he allegedly tried to weasel out of trouble by blaming someone else.

Last year, Parker allegedly clocked aide Lucretia John, 32, and crushed her glasses with his foot after she told him she couldn’t work for him anymore.

John filed a complaint, but the combustible senator filed a cross-complaint hours later, claiming John had punched him in the face. In press reports, he accused her of being lazy and slow to learn.

Parker was never charged in that incident.

“Lucretia is not surprised to hear that it happened again,” said her lawyer, Daniel Alterman, yesterday. “It’s remarkably similar to what happened to her — he tried to blame her for what happened.”

In 2005, Parker allegedly punched a traffic officer in the face over a $55 double-parking ticket.

He was slapped with third-degree assault charges, which were dropped when he agreed to undergo anger-management classes.

He also blamed the victim in that incident, claiming the officer was “overzealous” and made too much of their altercation.

At around the same time, another former aide came forward to say that she’d been choked by Parker in a shouting match.

She complained to then-Senate leader David Paterson about it but nothing came of it.

Yesterday, Gov. Paterson said he didn’t know enough about the incident to comment.

Additional reporting by Larry Celona and Erin Calabrese

georgett.roberts@nypost.com