CROWNING MOMENT: Adam Hock (top) leaves Manhattan court yesterday after a guilty plea stemming from a fight with (from left) Prince Pierre Casiraghi, Stavros Niarchos and Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld. (
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This so-called “Battle Royale” is finis — at least in Manhattan Criminal Court.
Former Hawaiian Tropic Zone owner Adam Hock pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct yesterday for a year-old Meatpacking District bar brawl that had left Monaco’s dashing Prince Pierre Casiraghi with a busted-up chin.
The plea — under which Hock must undergo 12 sessions of anger management and serve 10 days of community service — puts the kibosh on what would have been a tabloid-fabulous criminal trial.
The brawl’s witness list included not only Casiraghi, the son of the late Grace Kelly, but the prince’s posse of wealthy pals, along with a bevy of attendant fashion models, all present that night last February at the Double Seven nightclub.
The chisel-faced Hock, an international banking expert, is a founder of the nonprofit Independent Libya Foundation.
He has insisted that he only swung his fist in self-defense. Yesterday’s plea will leave him with no criminal record and was the result of prosecutors’ agreeing to back off the original charges of misdemeanor assault.
“As the officer said who arrested me, under New York City rules, the winner goes to jail and the loser goes to the hospital,” said Hock, who had been charged with socking not only Casiraghi but also three others in his partying posse.
They are Diego Marroquin, Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld and Greek shipping heir Stavros Niarchos, the ex of Paris Hilton.
Three of the Hock-socked partygoers — the exception being Niarchos — have sued Hock for unspecified money damages from the alleged assault and from allegedly being defamed by Hock and his legal team as “international bar brawlers.” That trial is set for Manhattan Supreme Court in April.
Both sides of the battle had gorgeous eyewitnesses in their corner. Niarchos had his Sports Illustrated swimsuit model sweetheart, Jessica Hart, who tweeted on her beau’s behalf that Hock was a “freaky liar.”
Supermodel Shawna Christensen — the face of Oil of Olay products — was also at the fracas and has spoken to investigators on Hock’s behalf. Though Hock’s criminal trial has been scuttled, any of these eyewitnesses may yet surface on the witness stand for the civil trial.
“No hard feelings,” Hock told reporters after taking his plea yesterday. “Going forward in life. Life’s too good.”
Hock has spent the past two years working with the Independent Libya Foundation, he told reporters. The foundation is described in its website as working with the country’s Transitional National Council dedicated to supporting an independent, democratic Libya.
“I’ve been working with a philanthropic foundation for the past two years,” he said.
The foundation requires Hock to travel internationally and frequently, said his lawyer, Joseph Tacopina. Being locked into a two-, possibly three-week trial would have been unworkable, Tacopina said.
Hock was also happy to take a plea that, unlike prosecutors’ earlier plea offers, involved no criminal record and no admissions to harassment or assault.
“He will acknowledge being disorderly,” the lawyer explained. “They were all being disorderly.”
Casiraghi would have had to answer “some very tough questions under sworn oath,” Tacopina added.
“I would have asked him about his prior conduct,” said the lawyer, who has called the four complainants a pack of “international bar brawlers.”
“And I would have asked him about the progressions of his injury from a superficial wound to something where he had to be out of work for 30 days.”
Weeks after the brawl, Casiraghi, the 25-year-old grandson of Grace Kelly, had given prosecutors a one-page report from his royal physicians claiming that his chin had been so grievously attacked, he needed to go on disability for a month.
His own bar brawl days are now firmly behind him, Hock told reporters.
“I’d never had any trouble going out before, prior to this,” he said. “I think I’ll be much more prudent regarding where I go and who I associate with.”
As for the mandatory anger management classes, which Tacopina said his client can “knock out in a week,” Hock was philosophical.
“My closest friends and my wife say I’m the least angry man on the planet,” he said. “But I’ll keep an open mind” at class, he said.
Casiraghi’s lawyer, Edward Kratt, declined to comment on the plea and the pending suit.