A lawyer for the Manhattan bank trader who clobbered his wife with a Prada clutch said Friday in court the only reason she needed stitches was that she had just had plastic surgery.
“She had pre-existing facial issues,” Alex Spiro, representing Joseph Botkier, 69, said in court. “Cosmetic surgery caused her eye to split open.”
Spiro also said prosecutors are overreaching with the felony assault charge.
“This case will not be indicted,” the lawyer said. “The plastic surgeon will testify in front of the grand jury that the skin was damaged and only cut due to that fact.”
Botkier, whose family owns a chic handbag line, allegedly smacked his wife Maria, 67, during a drunken spat in the lobby of their posh Tribeca building early Sunday.
Cops then searched their apartment and found a .32-caliber handgun. Botkier, who runs FX Direct Dealer LLC, was booked on assault and weapons possession raps.
Maria told the Post that the spat at Two River Terrace, where Leonardo DiCaprio owns two condos, was all her fault.
“I was attacking him and everything, beating him up, kicking him, ripping his pants apart,” she said. “And he just didn’t know what to do.“
She did not say what sparked the altercation. The couple’s daughter owns the Botkier handbag line, popular with celebrity clients like Angelina Jolie and Beyonce.