Hard-drinking actor Kiefer Sutherland, who inexplicably head-butted a top fashion designer at a celeb-studded party, will surrender to cops tomorrow to be charged with assault.
Designer: Kiefer Was ‘Vicious’, ‘Violent’
PAGE SIX: Kiefer Sutherland Head-Butts Designer
The “24” star will appear at the First Precinct station house downtown, a source said. There, he’ll be hit with the third-degree misdemeanor charge for allegedly bloodying Jack McCullough, the source said.
Investigators reached out to Sutherland’s lawyers following the early Monday fracas but were told he was unavailable to speak to cops because he’s out of the country, the sources said.
Sutherland, 42, who lives with his girlfriend in the West Village, got into the altercation at a Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute gala after-party at Submercer in the Mercer Hotel as he was talking to actress Brooke Shields.
McCullough, the founder of the Proenza Schouler label, told cops he had been making his way through the crowd to the bar about 2 a.m. when he tried to sidle past Shields and Sutherland.
But Sutherland apparently thought McCullough was invading their personal space.
“Hey, step back, buddy!” Sutherland managed to slur through his teeth as McCullough slipped past, sources said.
“What’s your problem?” McCullough shot back.
The one-time Brat Pack actor responded by smashing his forehead into McCullough’s face leaving the designer with a gash across the bridge of his nose.
Initial reports indicated that while the gash wasn’t big and McCullough did not seek medical attention, he decided to file a complaint with police the following evening.
“He was the victim of a vicious, violent, unprovoked assault,” a rep for McCullough told People magazine. “Anyone who knows Jack McCullough knows that he would not hurt a fly.”
Cops will speak to key witness Shields, after reaching out to her lawyers to arrange a sit-down, sources said.
She’s reportedly as miffed as the victim is.
TMZ reported that McCullough didn’t do anything to Shields to provoke the head-butt, according to Shields’s reps.
“Nothing happened to her,” the rep told the Web site. “Jack did nothing inappropriate. It’s not clear what caused Kiefer to do what he did.”
Shields refused to comment about the altercation at an Innocence Project event last evening.
But it was unclear if an arrest would affect the “Flatliners” star’s probation status stemming from a 2007 drunken-driving arrest in Los Angeles that landed him in jail for 48 days. He had been arrested for driving under the influence once before.