A defense lawyer promised a legal battle royale Thursday over the bar brawl that left Grace Kelly’s princely grandson with a broken jaw.
Defendant Adam Hock forcefully rejected a plea deal in the Feb. 12 fight at the Double Seven nightclub, with attorney Joseph Tacopina insisting his client was the real victim in the fisticuffs.
“There will be no plea in this case, so they can save their offer,” Tacopina declared. “He was struck by one of the alleged victims.”
Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Clerkin had just proposed an agreement where Hock, 45, would receive probation and a 12-week anger management course for a guilty plea to assault.
But Tacopina charged that Monaco’s Prince Pierre Casiraghi and his three pals were “habitual bar brawlers” with a history of fights in Paris and Belize.
Hock, the only one arrested after the punches flew in the Meatpacking District, claimed the fight started when he stepped up to protect a bevy of fashion models from the prince’s unwanted attentions.
The brawl escalated when Hock was smashed in the shoulder with a $500 bottle of vodka — an injury that Tacopina claims will require surgery.
“It’s really a ridiculous case,” said Tacopina, whose client is due
back in court on May 27.
Casiraghi and his pals are “very well-known individuals who seems to be in bars and bar fights all the time,” Tacopina said derisively. “One of them claims to be half-a-prince.”
Tacopina insisted three witnesses would back up Hock’s version of the brawl. Hock is the former owner of the now-defunct Hawaiian Tropic Zone.
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