Monaco’s Prince Pierre Casiraghi was allegedly knocked out by restaurateur Adam Hock. (CPE/OH)
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The Manhattan club owner charged with slugging a European prince during a Meatpacking District melee says the prospective heir to the Monaco throne and his trendy pals had been behaving like royal boors.
“I feel I was victimized by several drunk, entitled guys who felt they deserved the prime table with the most beautiful girls,” former Hawaiian Tropic Zone owner Adam Hock told The Post yesterday.
“They expected to be treated like the royalty they are. They didn’t get what they wanted, and it pissed them off.”
The restaurateur has been charged with attacking Prince Pierre Casiraghi — the 24-year-old grandson of Grace Kelly — and three of his heir-head pals in a scrum at club Double Seven early Saturday morning.
Hock, 47, said he was just defending himself and the bevy of models seated at his table after Casiraghi, Paris Hilton ex Stavros Niarchos and scenesters Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld and Diego Marroquin became “belligerent” and “aggressive” because he was at a better table than them.
Hock, who sprained his shoulder after being bashed with a vodka bottle in the fight, had his arm in a sling yesterday and said he’s weighing pressing charges against the four.
A witness quoted a badly bloodied Casiraghi — third in line to the Monaco throne — as saying, “My jaw is broken,” after he, Niarchos, Roitfeld and Marroquin were allegedly decked by Hock.
Another witness described the dashing son of Princess Caroline as being “disfigured” by the blow, and sources confirmed that his jaw was indeed broken.
Hock said the “hostility” started soon after he got to the Gansevoort Street lounge at 12:45 am. Owner Jeffrey Jah gave him and his party, which included three top models, the best table in the house — his own.
“My friend Peter Bakker [supermodel Natasha Poly’s husband] was there at our table with his wife and two other top models. I went to the bathroom, and when I came back, I could see there was hostility between Peter and Stavros Niarchos,” Hock said.
Niarchos and his friends had apparently been helping themselves to Bakker’s $500 table-service bottle of Grey Goose vodka. Bakker asked them to leave, “which they didn’t like,” Hock said.
“I thought they were being childish, because they then sent over another bottle of vodka, saying, ‘If you don’t want us to drink your vodka, here’s another bottle,’ ” Hock said, and they continued “huddling in front of our table.”
“They seemed annoyed that we were at the best table,” Hock said.
“I tried to smooth it over, but Stavros didn’t seem like he wanted to let it go. I didn’t know the guys he was with, and I certainly didn’t know the guy from Monaco,” Hock explained.
“You could feel the tension.”
The quintet decided they’d had enough, so “we decided to leave and go to another club. I walked in front of them to get my coat, and I said to them, ‘Guys, there is no need for this aggressiveness.’ Then I got hit on the back, and I got pulled and pushed — the tussling started.”
Witnesses said Hock hit the royal flush in the face, knocking him out. He then allegedly decked Niarchos and hit Roitfeld and Marroquin before the models broke it up.
Hock admitted, “It went in a direction it shouldn’t have,” but said: “It is common instinct that before you get hurt you protect yourself. I didn’t know the names of these guys. I only know Stavros’ name, and Stavros came at me full force. It happened so quick.
“I do remember getting pushed and pulled, and when it is coming from multiple directions, you get unsteady on your feet.”
He said now has “a huge, round bruise on my back” in “the shape of a bottle.”
While he’s been charged criminally with attacking the four men, Hock said, “I don’t know what I could have done differently except not have been there.”
Cops are reviewing video footage.
“If this guy from Monaco is badly injured, I feel terrible about that. I never meant anything to happen to anyone. I just want a peaceful life,” Hock said.
Witnesses had a different take on the brawl and described Hock as the aggressor.
“This guy just went nuts,” said party promoter Nima Yamini, who was at the adjacent table talking to his pal “Stav” about the Niarchos family charity when he saw Hock punch Casiraghi in the face.
“The prince went down so quick. He was out for the count,” Yamini said. His “face looked broken.”
Yamini said Niarchos — who was with his girlfriend, model Jessica Hart — went to help his friend “and got punched in the face. He did nothing wrong at all.”
Another witness, who asked not to be identified, said the entire fracas was the result of a “misunderstanding over who could sit at the owner Jeffrey Jah’s table and whose bottle of vodka it was.
“In my opinion, everybody had too much to drink, and somebody said something that was taken in a bad way.”
Hock said he’s scared for his future.
“I am concerned these guys will make my life difficult,” he said. “I imagine they are sitting with their parents strategizing how to destroy me. I am getting married in June. I want to start a family. I don’t want enemies like this.”
Hock’s attorney Sal Strazzullo said, “The case against Mr Hock at best is weak, it shows a person acting in self defense and will be dismissed entirely.”
A source with connections to the Casiraghi clan said, “Both the Monaco royals and the Niarchos families are very embarrassed.
“Caroline is furious, and the Niarchos family is very embarrassed. They don’t want it splashed over the papers.”
A rep for Hart had no comment.