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KIDNEY BEANED

A Long Island woman yesterday struck back at the husband who wants $1.5 million for the kidney he gave her, calling him insanely jealous and “hyper-suspicious.”

“He was rummaging through her underwear drawer and sniffing the underwear” to see if she had cheated, said Douglas Rothkopf, the law yer for Dawnell Batista, 44.

Rothkopf asked Special Referee Jeffrey Grob to place a gag order on the case since Batista’s es tranged husband, Rich ard, 49, held a news conference last week accusing her of adul tery.

Rothkopf said in Mineola matrimonial court that his client has never been unfaithful, the allegations of cheating are “grotesque,” and the hus band is “hyper- suspicious.”

Grob denied the request for a gag order but said he might impose one today.

The Batistas were in court yesterday but never made eye contact with each other.

Richard Batista, a vascular surgeon at Nassau University Medical Center, claims his wife left him after having an affair with her physical therapist. He gave her one of his kidneys in 2001 and now wants it back.

Since he knows he can’t have the organ, he is seeking $1.5 million, which he claims is the value of the transplant.

Jill Stone, the law guardian for the couple’s three daughters – ages 14, 11 and 8 – also requested a gag order, saying the media blitz has embarrassed the girls and made it hard for them to go to school.

Richard Batista’s lawyer, Dominic Barbara, said the surgeon was “godlike” for giving his kidney to his wife.

He said his client has the right to speak publicly about what he has been through.

“He wants to tell the world what happened in this case because it’s a tragedy,” the lawyer said. “This is a man who put his life on the line, and his wife treated him like a piece of dirt, garbage.”

Outside court, Rothkopf outlined the wife’s kidney problems.

At 12, she lost a kidney because of disease and received one from her father.

In August 1990, she married Batista, and two years later, her kidney failed again. This time she got one from her sister.

Years later, the lawyer said, despite doctors warning her that having a third child would endanger her kidneys, she chose to have a child after becoming pregnant.

A kidney failed yet again.

She got one from her husband, but claimed other family members could have provided one.

selim.algar@nypost.com