Dominic Carter has hit rock bottom.
Two months after the former NY1 political anchor was found guilty of attempted assault for beating, choking and kicking his wife, he spends his days worrying about how to pay his mortgage and agonizing over “how fast things got out of control.”
“I don’t set the alarm anymore,” Carter said in a tearful interview, his first since the attack on his wife was revealed by The Post two months ago. “I wake up. I sit around the house. I read the papers, watch a movie.
“Sometimes I cry a lot, but I try not to do it around my kids . . . I’ve had time to reflect on my life — and on how I dropped the ball as a man.
“For me to be forced to be home all day, it’s like I’m in jail,” he said over a breakfast of bacon, Egg Beaters and wheat toast at a diner near his Rockland County home.
“Whether I was at NY1 or promoting a book or delivering a speech somewhere, I was going 16 hours a day,” he said. “Now the only good thing is that I’m reflecting on myself.”
Later, as he sat with his wife, Marilyn, in the foyer of their two-story home, he winced as he recalled the night that ruined his life, Oct. 22, 2008.
“Our fight started over the medical care of my son, who suffers from severe epilepsy, which is a major issue in our family,” said Carter, 45.
He recalled being furious that one of his son’s doctors had advised his wife to stop giving the boy a seizure medication.
“I didn’t want the prescription to stop before Christmas break,” Carter recalled. “The fight started over that.”
For Marilyn, 52, this was unwanted interference from a remote, workaholic husband who barely saw his family.
“When you have a husband who knows his son has epilepsy but can’t make the doctors’ appointments or is very short of patience on the phone because he’s got to make a deadline, you start saying things,” she told The Post. “One thing leads to another.”
The escalation was part of a long, painful pattern.
“You talk about finances, medical conditions, late nights working, and you become strangers in your own house,” said Marilyn, who’s been married to the newsman for 25 years.
“Dominic goes to work. I see him 12 hours later. Then he stops and asks me what’s going on. It’s like ‘Where have you been?’ ”
According to the police report, the dispute ended in violence. Marilyn dialed 911 and said her husband had “hit me several times in my face, my back, all over my body,” according to a transcript of the call.
The report said that he punched her twice in the face, grabbed her throat, kicked her in the right shin and punched her in the arm.
Carter said Marilyn locked him out of the house.
A year later, when the court case became public, the embarrassed couple frantically denied the ugly incident, with Carter telling reporters that he “would never strike my wife” and that “domestic violence is no joke, and I don’t take it lightly.”
Marilyn recanted her 911 call, telling the judge that she was beaten up by a day laborer whose name she could not recall. The judge dismissed the claim as “nothing short of preposterous.”
Carter told The Post that, while there were other incidents “that got out of control,” he could not comment on what happened on that date in 2008 because he is appealing the verdict.
Two days after his bench trial this past November, he and Marilyn flew to Kansas City, Mo., for what she described as a “very intense accounting session.” It was reported that she fled the hotel room, leaving her belongings behind and sparking a police hunt.
“We were discussing 25 years of baggage,” she explained. “It was an awakening on both our parts. It had nothing to do with any physical or emotional abuse. It was an accounting session. I got very emotional, and I needed to get out and breathe, so I took a flight back to New York.”
On Nov. 20, Carter was found guilty of misdemeanor attempted assault. At his sentencing on Jan. 14, he faces up to three months in prison.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said. “It’s out of my hands; it’s in the judge’s hands. But I believe in our system, and no matter what happens, I’m going to hold my chin up. That’s all I can do.”
The Carters say they are trying to look toward the future.
“I will never again put myself in that type of situation,” he vowed. “I’m not running from it. I’m owning up to any mistakes I’ve made in the past. I tried to be proactive and join classes for domestic abuse, because I think it can make me a better person.”
While he waits to enroll in those classes, he attends weekly therapy sessions and is about to start couples counseling, he said.
He also wants to enroll his son and daughter in therapy.
His voice wavered and his eyes brimmed with tears when he discussed the fallout for Courtney, 21, and Dominic Jr., 17.
“At school, some of my daughter’s friends are not her friends anymore because of what happened,” he painfully admitted.
Dominic Jr., who has a learning disability, starts community college in the fall, an accomplishment that his father calls “bittersweet.”
“Instead of focusing on him going to school and taking a trip as a family, he’s got to look at the possibility that his father may be going to prison,” he said, tears streaking his cheeks.
“My family is with me unconditionally, and I’m fortunate for that. I was in complete denial that I had a problem,” said Carter, who revealed in his 2007 memoir that he was sexually abused as a boy and beaten by his mother.
“I didn’t have time to focus on me and my issues,” he said. “I thought I could wipe my past away. I should have dealt with this stuff a long time ago. Now I just want to be a better person.
“I’m just so sorry. You have no idea. I have enormous respect for my wife. She’s the rock that’s made everything possible for me.”
Marilyn, perched on the foyer stairs of the home she had festooned with holiday decorations, admitted there have been times in the rocky marriage when she almost bolted for good.
“I did think about leaving,” she said. “But my mother was a great believer in sacrificing for the good of her family, and I retain that.
“We have our difficulties, but, underneath, I think we have this understanding that we’ll be together for life. We are trying to get past this.”
A college administrator, she believes that her husband has been treated unfairly.
“Dominic is a good guy,” she said. “What happened in terms of his career shouldn’t have happened. It’s unfortunate that the personal intersects with the professional.”
But, for 25 years, Carter confessed, his career always came first.
“My career is not just television,” he said. “It’s ‘Dominic Carter, the author, the television personality, the speaker.’ There’s no doubt I put my family second to that.”
The sidelined political junkie — who moderated last year’s mayoral debate between Mayor Bloomberg and former City Comptroller Bill Thompson — couldn’t bear watching TV on Election Night.
“[That] was very tough for me,” he said, “because I would have been part of the team coverage. I watched for about five minutes on NY1, and then I turned it off and went to sleep. It was a little too painful.”
Nowadays, he rarely ventures into Manhattan — where he is constantly recognized — but he plans to make his first public appearance, with Marilyn, on Wednesday, to pay his respects at the funeral of civil-rights leader Percy Sutton.
While trying to reshape himself, rebuild his marriage and restart his career, Carter is also trying to save his home.
“Our personal finances are very, very tough right now,” he said. “My wife’s salary doesn’t come close to cutting it, and I don’t know when I’ll go back to work.
“I’m officially unemployed, and I now have a criminal record. What do I do? It’s a strong possibility we may have to give up the house.”
And he is amazed at how far — and fast — he’s fallen.
“One of the most shocking things is that I never got the opportunity to say goodbye to colleagues or to the viewers who supported me for 25 years,” he said.
Still, he hopes to be back on the air someday.
“If I have to move away and start over, then maybe it was meant to be,” he said. “I’m hoping to resume my career, but in what capacity that is, I still have no idea.
“If I could do this all over again, I would stop and say, ‘You know what, Dominic? You’ve got to think about what your past actually is. You can’t wipe it away like it never happened.’ “