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CATCHER IN THE ‘LIE’ AS SEXY TRYST TEENAGER CALLS MET STAR A 2-TIMING ‘SCUM’

A sexy Long Island teen revealed in an explosive interview yesterday that she and married Met catcher Paul Lo Duca have been carrying on a steamy affair since April, enjoying secret trysts at his pad and sharing intimate phone calls.

“He’s fun – for an older man,” bombshell brunette Krista Guterman, 19, said of the All-Star stud, whose wife recently slapped him with divorce papers charging adultery.

The baseball player was also hit yesterday with the announcement that the Mets will probe claims that he’s run up heavy gambling debts.

As Lo Duca deflected the stories about his gambling and infidelity yesterday, tanned teen Guterman told how she first met the 34-year-o ld dad at an Island Park, L.I., pickup joint, The Coyote – just after he returned from spring training and she from college.

Guterman said that the red-hot slugger told her he was divorced when the tryst began.

She learned that he was still married to his wife of six years, Sonia, only after reading The Post on Monday.

“I didn’t know he was married. If I knew he was married, I wouldn’t have dated him,” insisted the leggy teen, who lives with her parents.

Asked how she felt after learning the catcher was still hitched, Guterman replied, “He’s a scumbag for lying to me.”

The teen said that since Lo Duca is on the road a lot with the Mets, the hot pair were left to burn up the phone lines until they could hook up when he was in town. Of course, their rendezvous were always on the sly, she said.

“We would go to his place [in Long Island] and hang out,” Guterman said.

She described the duo’s dating as casual and open, explaining that they could both still date other people. Guterman said she didn’t expect it to go anywhere.

“It was fun,” she said. “I would call it a fling.”

When asked if he was her boyfriend, she said, “No. We dated.”

“He’s a fun guy. He has a good personality,” Guterman said. “We’re good friends. We still talk a lot on the phone.”

The teen even dedicated part of her myspace.com Web page to Lo Duca – and posted a sexy photo of her perched on his lap at The Coyote.

She also showed two photos of the slugger in action – tagged to romantic lyrics from Jessica Simpson’s song “Angels.”

“And through it all, he offers me protection. A lot of love and affection. Whether I’m right or wrong . . . my love,” it read under the photos, which mysteriously disappeared along with the rest of her page yesterday.

At another place on the page, Guterman wrote: “I have an obsession with the Mets . . . OBV [obviously]!!!!”

Guterman said she last heard from the Brooklyn-born Lo Duca when “he called me a couple of nights ago.”

Lo Duca wanted to warn her that some news about him might hit the papers in the coming days, she said.

The catcher was right to be worried.

As The Post exclusively reported, his Playboy-model wife filed for divorce June 30, charging “adultery.”

A rep for the baseball player last night said he “knew nothing about” Guterman’s claims.

“I don’t know what to say . . . This is so far out of the blue. It can’t be true,” the spokesman said.

Still, Sonia Lo Duca’s mom has said she was told that it was a fling – not a long-term affair – that was the basis of the adultery allegation against Lo Duca.

Lo Duca himself told WFAN radio yesterday morning that his divorce “is just one of those things where we’re going our separate ways.

“There’s more written than I thought would be written,” Lo Duca said. “So I am hoping there is nothing else. There shouldn’t be anything else.

“There are no skeletons in the closet. Nothing. It’s . . . done and over with.”

Pressed again about any possible upcoming “surprises” in the sordid story, Lo Duca said, “No, no, no, no, no. Nothing at all.”

Lo Duca’s wife was slated to be part of the interview – and the radio station aired promos touting the pair’s upcoming chat as late as Monday evening. But a Mets rep suddenly phoned the station around 7 p.m. to say she would not be on air the next day, a well-placed source said.

At another press conference before last night’s Met matchup against the San Diego Padres, Lo Duca said he and his wife “were great friends.

“I love my wife,” he said, dismissing claims she might have been a “gold digger.”

“My first thought is, I don’t want this to be a distraction for my team,” Lo Duca said, flanked by two fellow star teammates – pitcher Tom Glavine and third baseman David Wright. “We’re having a good year. I feel like I’ve been a part of it.”

The catcher certainly has – and his hot streak only seems to have heated up since his wife slapped him with the divorce papers.

He’s batted an amazing .430 since July 1, the day after she filed to end their marriage.

Lo Duca refused to take questions regarding the controversy surrounding his failing marriage. Glavine stepped up to the plate only to add, “Hopefully, this will blow over very quickly.”

A woman answering the phone at the Lo Duca family home in Arizona said everyone is trying to stay focused on the star catcher’s career upswing.

“We love our brother, and we’re supporting him with everything’s he’s going through,” she said. “It’s a private, family affair. You should be talking about baseball.”

Before hanging up, the woman, who identified herself as Lo Duca’s sister-in-law, said, “Go, Mets.”

According to the divorce petition filed by Sonia Lo Duca, the couple “ceased to live together as husband and wife on or about April 19.”

A source close to Paul Lo Duca has told The Post that his reputed extramarital dalliances began after the pair’s separation.

The couple has a 20-month-old daughter.

As for claims that Lo Duca is a heavy gambler, the ballplayer said on WFAN and at his press conference that while he likes to bet, he’s not an addict.

“I like horses. I own thoroughbreds. I breed them. It’s something I want to do. It’s my love,” Lo Duca told reporters outside the locker room at Shea Stadium.

“I don’t have a gambling problem,” he said. “I do bet on horses legally. I have an online account . . . I have no gambling debt. I have no past debts that were paid – nothing. All those allegations are false.”

On Joe Benigno’s radio show on WFAN earlier, Lo Duca said, “If you want to paint me that way – if I’m a gambler, yeah, I’m a gambler. I like to bet on horses, and that’s it.”

Major League Baseball spokesman Pat Courtney said the commissioner’s office would not comment on Lo Duca’s statements yesterday.

But the Mets said they’ll be investigating the claims of too-heavy betting.

“We’re definitely going to ask him about that,” said Mets GM Omar Minaya, referring to whether Lo Duca may have run up gambling debts. “Once we ask him, we’ll go from there.”

Lo Duca hung out with his buddy, Kentucky Derby-winning jockey Mike Smith, at Saratoga Springs on Monday, enjoying the races on a Mets off-day before attending a charity dinner at night.

While the divorce petition involving him makes no claims about his gambling, it requests that Lo Duca refrain from “incurring any indebtedness, other than legal expenses in connection with this suit, except as specifically authorized by order of this court.”

It also seeks to prevent him from “making withdrawals from any checking or savings account in any financial institution for any purpose, except as specifically authorized by order of this court.”

Additional reporting by David K. Li, Dan Kadison, Kate Sheehy and John Da Silva