Metro

Deputy mayor quit after being busted for domestic violence

The Goldsmiths' Georgetown home

The Goldsmiths’ Georgetown home (Ron Sachs/CNP)

(
)

The blizzard didn’t bury him — roughing up his wife did.

Former Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith — who drew sharp criticism for bungling the Christmas storm that shut down the city — actually resigned in disgrace after his wife, fearing for her life, had him arrested during an argument turned violent, The Post has learned.

Just days before he suddenly stepped down as Mayor Bloomberg’s chief of operations, Goldsmith was arrested at his Georgetown home after his wife, Margaret, told cops he smashed a phone and grabbed her as she desperately tried to call cops, a Washington, DC, police report reveals.

READ THE REPORT (PDF)

The shocking report describes in dramatic detail how a “verbal altercation” between the former Indianapolis mayor, 64, and his wife in their ritzy house turned ugly at around 11:30 p.m. July 30.

“I should have put a bullet through you years ago!” Margaret, 59, allegedly told Goldsmith, the report revealed.

Stephen Goldsmith then “shoved [Margaret into] the kitchen counter,” according to the report.

“You’re not going to do this to me again, I’m calling the police,” Margaret responded, the report said.

Goldsmith “then grabbed the phone from her hands and threw it onto the ground, breaking the phone. He then grabbed [Margaret] and refused to let her go.”

“She kept screaming, ‘Let me go, let me go,’ ” as Stephen refused to let her out of his grasp, according to the report.

“She dug her nails into [Stephen’s] forearms,” causing him to release Margaret, who then “ran to the other room to call police.”

Cops arrived and arrested Stephen for “simple assault domestic violence,” the report said. Margaret complained of back pain but refused medical attention.

Goldsmith spent two days locked up in a DC jail, but prosecutors declined to press the case after Margaret decided not to pursue it.

It was that shameful incident that spurred Goldsmith to resign Aug. 4 after just 14 months as the city’s operations chief — not, as first reported, his botched handling of the city’s response to the blizzard.

The July 30 arrest was “the overriding reason,” Margaret Goldsmith told The Post yesterday. “It would become a huge distraction to Bloomberg, and Stephen would never allow that to happen. He wasn’t planning to resign when he resigned.”

Bloomberg was informed of the arrest, and Goldsmith then quit, a source said yesterday.

“The mayor did not feel he should play judge or jury, but innocent or guilty, it was clear [Goldsmith’s] service at City Hall was no longer tenable,” said the source.

Bloomberg spokesman Marc LaVorgna declined to comment.

Margaret Goldsmith, who suffers from lupus, yesterday strenuously denied that her husband got violent with her.

“There was no domestic violence that occurred between my husband and myself,” said Margaret, who wed Stephen in 1988 after prior marriages for both. “Nor has there ever been in the history of the marriage.

“It was a big mistake,” she said of his arrest. “I can only tell you it was an enormous misunderstanding. It just got out of control.”

Stephen said, “Because, according to the officers, DC law required an arrest, one was made over the objection of my wife, and no charges were ever filed.

“Although Margaret, under oath, has affirmed the absence of violence and my actual innocence, I offered my resignation in order not to be a distraction to the mayor and his important agenda for the city.”

He added that his family has “faced difficult times,” but “anyone who knows us as a couple understands that this is not who we are.”

dan.mangan@nypost.com