Grace Kelly

Former club owner accused of beating up Grace Kelly’s grandson says he was defending bevy of supermodels


A former club owner charged with beating up Grace Kelly's grandson insisted Monday he was defending a bevy of supermodels when his punch sent the young royal flying across a Meatpacking District bar - and into a hospital.

The melee at Double Seven left Monaco's Prince Pierre Casiraghi bloodied, bruised and with a broken jaw, according to a criminal complaint against Adam Hock.

"I acted 100% in self-defense. I felt I had to defend the honor of the women I was with," said Hock, 47, who left a doctor's office wearing a sling on his left arm.

The prince's camp insists the one-time football jock went berserk, swinging round-house punches at anyone in sight in the early Saturday brawl.

"The facts are very clear," said Nadine Johnson, a spokeswoman for Casiraghi and his crew. "There was only one person arrested, Mr. Hock, who spent two days in jail as a result of his actions."

Casiraghi, 24, is the son of Grace Kelly's daugther, Princess Caroline of Monaco, and Italian sportsman Stefano Casiraghi, who died in a 1990 speedboat crash.

Saturday's fight broke out at 2:20 a.m. at the Gansevoort St. celebrity hot spot, prompting champagne-sipping fashionistas to duck for cover, witnesses said.

Hock‘s lawyer, Sal Strazzullo, insisted that Casiraghi and his trust-fund pals threw the first punch.

He portrayed the prince and his posse as "wealthy barons from Europe" with a vulgar sense of entitlement.

"They think New York is their honeycomb. They think they can come here and do whatever they want," Strazzullo said.

Still, it was Hock who cops hauled off to jail, where he sat until Sunday.

Hock, 47, the former owner of the defunct Hawaiian Tropic Zone in Times Square, was arraigned on misdemeanor charges of assault and harassment, and released.

"There was a verbal dispute that turned into a fist fight," an NYPD spokesman said. "Hock allegedly punched (the) complainants in the face with a closed fist. They suffered pain and bruising."

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office was reviewing surveillance video from inside the nightclub. It was not immediately clear if the video showed the fracas.

Hock, who played football for Rutgers University, claims he was the victim.

Strazzullo said the prince and his pals were harassing the models seated at Hock's table, including Victoria's Secret catwalkers Natasha Poly and Anja Rubik. Double Seven owner, Jeffrey Jah, was also at Hock's table.




"They teased, they harassed, and finally, they assaulted and he had to defend himself and the women he was with," Strazzullo said.

"They threw the first punch," Strazzullo said. "They were touching the girls, grabbing them the way Europeans feel they can touch whatever woman they want in New York."

Hock is also accused of attacking Stavros Niarchos, Diego Marroquin, and Vladimir Riotfeld - the son of former French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld. Niarchos, the ex-flame of Paris Hilton, was with his girlfriend, Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Jessica Hart.

"That guy totally attacked them," said a source close to Hart. "It seemed like Adam couldn't control his rage. He was going around punching everyone," said the source.

The source said Hock hit Casiraghi so hard he was "thrown across the room."

The source knocked down Hock's camp insistence that jealously over the hot models at Hock's table prompted the fisticuffs.

"They had Jessica Hart and models at their table," the source said of the prince and his party. "They weren't jealous. Jessica is a big-time model."

Another nightlife source familiar with the incident claimed the fight erupted after Hock returned from the restroom to find Casiraghi and his pals bothering the beauties at his table and helping themselves to his bottle of vodka.

"They're pouring themselves drinks from his bottle and talking to the women," the source said.

"Adam came back and he saw that his group was not interested in hanging with these guys," the source said. "Adam Hock got up to go and the four guys jumped on him at once."

Celebrity defense lawyer, Aaron Richard Golub, dubbed the "Ninja Lawyer" for his dismantling of opponents' witnesses on the stand, was hired to represent Casiraghi and his pals.

Golub insisted that the attack by Hock was "unprovoked."

"This case is not about what this lawyer says. It's about what's said on the witness stand before a jury," Golub said.

Ed Kratt, a criminal defense lawyer working with Golub, said Casiraghi and his entourage were invited to the bar by owner, Jeffrey Jah.

Kratt claimed that Hock began "acting strange" when Jah invited Casiraghi and his friends to join them.

"Hock was speaking to Diego . All of a sudden, he stood up and punched Diego in the face - unprovoked and without warning - knocking him down," Kratt said.

Kratt said Casiraghi, Roitfeld, and Niarchos were all "sucker punched" by Hock when they tried to help Marroquin.

"This guy was a serial sucker puncher," Kratt said of Hock. "There was no mutual combat here. As far as these guys were concerned, nothing was up. They had done nothing."

Jah, the club owner, refused comment.

Strazzullo scoffed at Kratt's account of the incident.

Informed that lawyers for Casiraghi and his friends might be planning to slam Hock with a civil suit, Strazzullo bristled, "Bring it on. We're planning a civil suit also. We would love to depose them."

Hock - who has dabbled in foreign diplomacy, most recently attempting to get heads of state in South America to recognize the transitional Libyan government - is no stranger to to lawsuits.

In 2008, his restaurant was sued for $600 million by female staffers at Hawaiian Tropic Zone, who charged they had been forced to perform sexual acts. The suit was settled in 2010.

The restaurant was also sued in 2009 by a Latina job applicant who said she was rejected after she was told she was "too ghetto."


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