Anna Gristina after posting bail Tuesday night. (Kristy Leibowitz)
Anna Gristina is the latest charity case of a well-respected Manhattan philanthropist.
Do-gooder Bonnie Lunt is the mystery hero who put up $250,000 collateral to spring the accused hockey mom madam from Rikers last night, court records show.
The 65-year-old Lunt — a top New York headhunter who has been dubbed the “Jerry Maguire of the communications industry”– posted her own Upper East Side home to help Gristina make bail, according to bail documents.
Lunt’s East 76th street pad is just around the corner from the tiny East 78th Street apartment prosecutors claim Gristina used as headquarters for an alleged multi-million dollar prostitution operation.
On bail documents, Lunt listed herself as a “family friend.” Sources told The Post that the kind-hearted Lunt is a friend of Gristina’s sister.
Gristina’s lawyer, Norm Pattis, declined comment on the family relationship, but said, “We are extremely grateful for Bonnie Lunt’s generosity. It restores my faith in people.”
The generous offer by Lunt came through at the 11th hour, after a hoped-for bail package with one of Gristina’s in-laws failed to materialize.
Pattis said celebrity bail bondsman Ira Judelson jumped through hoops to make Lunt’s package acceptable to prosecutors.
“None of this would have been possible without Mr. Judelson’s creativity,” Pattis said.
Lunt, whose eponymous recruiting agency places women in high-profile professional jobs, is known for her charity work. Her organization, People Helping People, supports an Ecuadorian village with medical care and education. She founded the group in the wake of Hurricane Andrew in 1993, getting her well-heeled advertising pals to donate millions for relief efforts.
Thanks to Lunt, Gristina — who is charged with a single count of promoting prostitution – walked out of jail and into the arms of her family last night.
“Thank you, everybody,” Gristina told reporters as she walked out of Manhattan Criminal Court shortly after 9 p.m., pony- tailed and blinking in the camera lights, her arm locked tight around her youngest kid, 9-year-old Nick.
The boy presented his mom with a bouquet of red roses; bail bondsman Judelson presented her with a court-mandated ankle-bracelet monitor that will let her travel in the tristate area.
“I just can’t believe I’m home,” she exclaimed later, after entering her upstate house. “I keep thinking I’m going to wake up tomorrow and I’ll be in Rikers.”
Gristina had been at Rikers Island since prosecutors pulled her screaming off a Midtown street in February, unable to make her initial bail of $2 million and struggling to post a bond even when appellate judges lowered it two weeks ago to a $250,000.
“She kept saying, ‘Is it really true? Is it really true?’ ” Pattis told The Post of the moment she learned she was finally making bond. “Moments like that are why you go to law school.”
Pattis and Gristina faced the microphones briefly before the family drove off to their 200-acre pig-rescue farm in upstate Monroe.
“The nightmare of her bond ends today, and trial preparation begins tomorrow morning,” Pattis said.
Judelson — who has posted bonds for Lil Wayne and Dominique Strauss-Kahn — said Gristina’s bracelet will allow her to visit her lawyer in Connecticut and court in lower Manhattan.
“I don’t want her going to Queens, near any of the airports, but I feel she’s not a flight risk,” Judelson said. “She wants to be home with her 9-year-old.”
Gristina had been scrambling to put together a bail package since June 18, ever since booting her “family lawyer,” Peter Gleason, because she felt the $250,000 collateral he personally was offering to provide came with too many strings attached. They included his insistence on guiding her media and legal decisions, multiple sources have told The Post.
Gristina, who’s charged with promoting prostitution, almost posted bail later last week, but a package secured by collateral provided by some of her in-laws fell through.
Prosecutors say Gristina’s Manhattan-based, $2,000-an-hour call-girl ring made $15 million over the last decade — and operated with the guidance and protection of powerful johns and unspecified members of law enforcement.
They’ve flipped her alleged money launderer and two of her alleged call girls to bolster their five-year investigation, which has yet to haul a single john or lawman to court.
Gristina counters that she ran a dating service for married men — and that prosecutors have promised to go easy if she rats on her well-placed collaborators or clients, which she has refused to do.