The criminal case is getting dropped, but the civil battle is just starting for a hunky young millionaire accused of driving his bright red Ferrari over a cop’s foot in SoHo last summer.
Manhattan prosecutors agreed yesterday to drop the misdemeanor assault case against Julien Chabbott, 29 — the former boyfriend of blonde reality star Stephanie Pratt — explaining that while the cop’s injury was painful at the time, it wasn’t serious in the long term.
Chabbott’s charges will be dismissed altogether in six months providing he serves five days community service, a Manhattan Criminal Court judge ruled.
“The only known contact with the motor vehicle was minimal,” assistant district attorney Ariel Pizzitola told the judge. “The injuries to the police officer, though painful, did not result in a bone fracture or long-term impairment,” she explained.
But the cop and the millionaire remain at loggerheads over the August, 2012 incident, in which Chabbott either intentionally or accidentally rolled forward in his quarter-million-dollar 458 Spider sports car as he was getting a parking ticket outside the Mercer Hotel.
Chabbott, who owns the social media site Line Snob, left criminal court yesterday insisting through his lawyer that he never ran over the cop’s foot — and that his Spider wouldn’t hurt a fly.
Medical records and an amateur YouTube video taken of the incident shows that the the cop “fabricated” injuries, said the defense lawyer, Benjamin Brafman.
“The heart of this case was compromised by us working frame by frame through the video with the DA’s office,” Brafman said.
“We demonstrated that the contact was incidental,” Brafman said. “The police officer claimed the car ran over his foot, but you can see it in the video — the car lurches an inch or two forward, and grazes the pant leg of the officer.”
As for why the car moved forward, “It’s a Ferrari — it almost moves by itself. You wouldn’t believe it,” Brafman told a reporter.
Told of the looming criminal dismissal, civil lawyer Sal Strazzullo said that he will sue Chabbott within 30 days.
“The video clearly shows the car running over my client’s foot,” Strazzullo said. “Thank god my client wasn’t hurt more,” the civil lawyer said. “I mean, my god, it’s a car.”
Strazzullo slammed prosecutors for agreeing to drop the case. “I guess the DA thinks that running your car into a cop is the same thing as jumping a turnstile,” he said.