NYC Mayor Adams advocated for ‘innocent’ Rudy Giuliani back-slapper in talk with Staten Island DA

Mayor Adams confirmed Thursday that he has privately urged Staten Island’s district attorney to go easy on a supermarket worker charged with assault for patting Rudy Giuliani on the back during a tense altercation last month.

Speaking at an unrelated press conference in Brooklyn, Adams said he talked with the DA, Michael McMahon, in the past few days about Daniel Gill, who’s facing misdemeanor assault, menacing and harassment charges for patting Giuliani on the back while the ex-mayor was at the Staten Island ShopRite where Gill works on June 26.

Adams said he told McMahon it was uncalled for to initially jail Gill over the incident.

“I believe it was unfair for a New Yorker to spend 24 hours in jail for an offense that he did not commit,” Adams said. “And I communicated that with the district attorney. ... I just believe we should not have innocent New Yorkers spend 24 hours in a jail for a crime they did not commit.”

New York City Mayor Eric Adams (Shawn Inglima/)

A spokesman for McMahon did not return a request for comment, and neither did a Giuliani rep. The Legal Aid Society, which is representing Gill, declined to comment.

Surveillance footage from last month’s incident shows Gill approaching Giuliani from behind and nudging him on the back with an open palm before apparently telling him something and walking off.

According to Giuliani, Gill told him, “What’s up, s---bag?” after the pat and then berated the Republican former mayor for his anti-abortion stance.

“He kept cursing, he wouldn’t stop,” Giuliani said in a virtual press conference after the incident. “He kept menacing and threatening me. So I said let’s get him arrested, let’s make an example out of him.”

Rudy Giuliani at a Staten Island Shop-Rite on Sunday June 26, 2022.

Giuliani has also insisted that the pat injured him and that it felt like he had been “shot.”

But Adams — who previously urged McMahon to consider investigating Giuliani for falsely reporting a crime over the supermarket spat — said at Thursday’s event that the surveillance footage vindicates Gill.

“It’s clear from the videotape ... a pat on the back is not an assault,” he said.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (Mary Altaffer/)

The supermarket fracas has set off an unusual public feud between Giuliani and Adams.

Giuliani, who was at the supermarket to campaign for his son’s failed GOP gubernatorial bid, lambasted Adams as an “idiot” last Tuesday over his push for McMahon to investigate the ex-mayor.

Adams, in turn, said he would discuss the incident with NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell, in addition to McMahon, to determine whether what Giuliani did amounts to falsely reporting a crime.