Cops picked up a Long Island man for questioning Tuesday in connection with the alleged beating of Donald Sterling’s former gal pal V. Stiviano, law enforcement sources said.
The 40-year-old was taken from his home and questioned by detectives with the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force, sources said.
He has not been arrested or charged.
Stiviano — who is of black and Latino descent — claims she was pummeled by two men who shouted racial slurs at her outside a Meatpacking District restaurant on Sunday night.
She was leaving a restaurant near the Gansevoort Hotel when two men attacked her and “punched her on the right side of her face several times,” said the woman’s lawyer Mac Nehoray.
“As Ms. Stiviano was getting inside a cab, one of the assailants punched her in the face, calling her a f—— n—– bitch,” Alaleh Kamran, another lawyer for Stiviano, said in a prepared statement on Tuesday.
Stiviano’s team also claims that there are witnesses to the attack, and nearby security cameras captured it on tape.
“We understand that there are now two videos of the assault that have been located,” Kamran said.
“In addition, several witnesses have come forward with relevant and critical information regarding the facts surrounding the incident and the identity of the assailants. We also have reason to believe that one of the assailants is now in the hospital.”
Stiviano famously recorded a chat she had with Clippers owner Sterling in which he made a series of racist statements.
The incendiary words led NBA Commissioner Adam Silver to ban Sterling for life and order him to sell the team.
Estranged wife Shelly Sterling has reached a deal to sell the Clips to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer for a mind-blowing $2 billion.
Donald Sterling is challenging the sale, saying the NBA and Shelly Sterling don’t have the authority to order and make such a deal.