A 40-year-old Long Island man was charged with a hate crime Tuesday for allegedly shouting the n-word at Donald Sterling’s ex-gal pal V. Stiviano while punching her in the face in the Meatpacking District, police sources said.
Dominick Diorio, 40, of Old Bethpage, allegedly accosted the woman who brought the LA Clippers owner down as she walked past the Gansevoort Hotel Sunday.
Diorio and a pal apparently recognized Stiviano — who is of black and Latino decent — from her involvement in the NBA race scandal, in which Sterling was forced to sell his basketball team after Stiviano recorded him making racist statements.
Diorio allegedly punched her in the face as he shouted racial slurs. Pictures of her injuries were published by MailOnline.
The suspect was then injured when some passersbv pummeled him, sources said. Cops found him sprawled out on the ground, drunk and bleeding and took him to the hospital.
At the time they did not know he had allegedly struck Stiviano. But after she filed a complaint Monday, cops put Diorio in a line up Tuesday and the California woman IDed him, sources said.
Stiviano said nothing after leaving the 6th Precinct in Greenwich Village. Diorio was hit with a felony charge of assault as a hate crime and a charge of harassment.
The middle-aged suspect lives with his parents.
“Wow, I’m not going to tell my wife about this. That’ll just upset her. I don’t know what to do,” the man’s dad told The Post.