Metro

CBS anchor Rob Morrison resigns after allegedly choking wife in Conn. home

Long-time New York TV anchorman Rob Morrison has resigned from WCBS-Channel 2, less than three days after being arrested in Connecticut for allegedly choking his wife in a drunken rage, and then threatening to kill her when in police custody.

Sources said that Morrison, 44, submitted his resignation today, hours after The Post exclusively revealed that he allegedly also had previously threatened to murder his 7-year-old son in front on his fellow-journalist wife Ashley, and then kill her.

Morrison later confirmed that he resigned his position as a CBS 2 news anchor, effective immediately.

Morrison said in a prepared statement, “My family is my first and only priority right now and I have informed CBS 2 management that I need to put all of my time and energy into making sure that I do what’s best for my wife and my son. I very much appreciate the opportunity that CBS 2 has given me and I thank them for accepting my decision.”

He had tweeted earlier today, “To those who prefer to believe the outright lies printed in the tabloids, I ain’t mad at ya. Good luck.”

An allegedly “extremely inebriated,” “belligerent” Morrison was arrested early Sunday morning at the million-dollar Darien home where he lives with Ashley and their son after Ashley’s worried mom called cops and reported a domestic disturbance there.

“I can’t go home tonight man, I’m f–king killing her!” a vodka-fueled Morrison, 44, slurred to a cop booking him Sunday for allegedly throttling Ashley, according to the police report obtained by The Post.

TROUBLE IN PARADISE: Rob Morrison and fellow CBS anchor wife Ashley have a history of domestic disputes.

TROUBLE IN PARADISE: Rob Morrison and fellow CBS anchor wife Ashley have a history of domestic disputes. (Facebook)

He also taunted his arresting officers, dubbing one cop “Sergeant Douchebag” and daring them to make his handcuffs tighter, the report says.

Ashley, 40, an anchor for “CBS Money,” bashed Morrison in the face with a remote control to stop him from choking her with both hands on the couch, cops said.

That’s how he ended up with a bloody gash on his nose in his mug shot.

The petite, 115-pound blonde was so “distressed, visibly shaken, and clearly in fear of her husband” that she refused to write out a statement against him, cops wrote. She also would not allow them to photograph red marks on her neck.

Ashley’s brother, Dr. Gregory Risk, told police that Morrison once threatened the couple’s 7-year-old son, Jack.

“G. Risk stated that in the past R. Morrison commented to him that if A. Morrison leaves him he would shoot their son in front of her and then shoot her,” police wrote.

Cops notified Connecticut Child Protective Services about “suspected child abuse and neglect” at the home, which automatically triggered an investigation.

But sources told The Post that Ashley is also confrontational — and that she got him fired as morning news anchor at WNBC/Channel 4 in 2008.

WNBC refused to renew his lucrative contract when Ashley e-mailed about 100 people in the newsroom, accusing them of being complicit in his suspected affair with a production assistant or intern.

Ashley discovered the alleged affair after hiring a private investigator, and stashing a recording device in Rob’s car.

“You know that if I go public, it is going to make everybody at Channel 4 look bad,” Ashley wrote in her email to NBC journalists.

“The email said, ‘I know who the woman is, I know my husband has been carrying on and the fact that you have protected him is disgusting, this affair happened in your work place and you did nothing to stop it,'” the source recounted.

She was basically saying ‘if you continue to shield my husband, I am going to make life really hard for you’.”

“It made everyone as uncomfortable as hell. She wrote it to the general manager (Dennis Swanson now at Fox 5 ) and the news director at Channel 4, and cc:ed all of his co-anchors including the weather man Chris Cimino. He said the situation was really uncomfortable.”

“Channel 4 protected Rob as long as they could, and when they thought that Ashley’s email might go public, they told Rob we are going to cancel you,” the source said.

“Ashley has got a volatile streak in her as well. She makes herself out to be a victim, but those two just poke each other. Nobody is the complete innocent in that couple. When they were working together at Channel 2 everybody knew about this, and viewed them as a pressure cooker. They knew at some point things would explode.”

Sources yesterday said that Rob Morrison was convinced his arrest Sunday would cost him his job at WCBS, which hired him in 2009 after he spent more than a year as a stay-at-home dad who wrote a Web blog about his Mr. Mom life.

His resignation forestalls the chance that he would be fired.

The handsome, 180-pound ex-Marine was arraigned in Stamford Superior Court yesterday on charges of strangulation, threatening and disorderly conduct.

A judge ordered the “News This Morning” host Morrison to stay at least 100 yards away from Ashley outside the office, and barred him from contacting her or going to their million-dollar home.

“I did not choke my wife. I have never laid hands on my wife,” Morrison, who remains free on $100,000 bail, told reporters before his arraignment.

“I love my wife more than anything,” said Morrison, whose nose and lip were still scarred.

Ashley was not in court. Her mother, Martha Risk, told cops during the Sunday morning blow-up that Morrison called her to say, “Your daughter is crazy, we have to do something with her,” the police report said.

Risk said she had begged her daughter to leave Morrison, but the long-suffering wife feared he “would do something to her and their son,” the report said.

When cops got to the Morrison house around 1:30 a.m., an “extremely intoxicated” Rob greeted them at the door, blood dripping down his nose and lip, and tried to stop them from entering.

Morrison called the arresting officers “f–king a–hole cops.”

When asked if his cuffs were too tight, he “stated that he wanted them tighter,” according to the police report.

Judge Kenneth Povadator said the police report “not only reflects a serious incident, it reflects the likelihood of a serious history . . . If I’m going to make a mistake, I’m going to err on the side of safety.”

Morrison apologized to the cops in his statement to reporters, saying: “I regret deeply how I acted toward the Darien Police Department.”

His lawyer, Robert Skovgaard, did not comment on the contents of the police report.

hen asked if Ashley would drop the charges, he said, “I don’t know the answer to that question.”

Cops had been to the couple’s Darien home before. Records obtained yesterday show Rob Morrison was arrested Oct. 17, 2011, for disorderly conduct in an incident involving Ashley.

On Jan. 19, a cop went there in response to another domestic disturbance.

And The Post first reported that Morrison was also arrested for allegedly assaulting his wife in 2009 in New York — and that cops had gone to their city apartments seven other times for verbal disputes.

WCBS has refused to comment on the scandal, which has kept the couple off the air since Sunday.

Additional reporting by Emily Smith, Michael Shain, Lorena Mongelli, Larry Celona and Beth DeFalco

dan.mangan@nypost.com