Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday belittled the arrest of a worker at a Staten Island supermarket for allegedly assaulting former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, saying the allegations surrounding the confrontation showed "a lot of creativity."

Asked about the incident, Adams said at a Tuesday news conference that he had “looked at the video, and someone needs to remind former Mayor Giuliani that falsely reporting a crime is a crime.” 

“And from what he stated about being punched in the head, felt like a bullet, you know, what he stated, that was a lot of creativity,” Adams said. “And I think the district attorney, he has the wrong person that he’s investigating.” 

“When you look at the video, the guy basically walked by and patted him on the back,” he added. “I don’t know if he said, ‘Congratulations,’ I don’t know what he said to him, but it was clear that he was not punched in the head. It was clear that it didn’t feel like a bullet. It was clear that he wasn’t about to fall to the ground.” 

The mayor’s remarks came two days after ShopRite employee Daniel Gill, 39, was arrested for allegedly attacking Giuliani, 78, at the supermarket on Veterans Road on Staten Island. 

The former mayor was campaigning for his son, Andrew, who is one of four Republican candidates running for governor of New York. 

Responding to Adams in a Facebook Live Tuesday afternoon, Giuliani maintained the mayor “wants to prosecute me for filing a false report I didn’t file.” 

“Mayor Adams is an idiot, because I didn’t file a report. Can you imagine that?” the former mayor said. “His police department filed a report. They did the investigation. They looked at the tape. He really doesn’t give a damn about victims.” 

“I filed nothing, idiot, so you can’t prosecute me for anything, okay?” he added. “And if you could, I’d beat you in court anyway.” 

In a Facebook Live he broadcasted a day earlier, Giuliani shared his side of the incident, saying he was standing inside the store with a group of supporters when he “got hit on the back as if a boulder hit me.” 

“It knocked me forward a step or two — it didn’t knock me down — but it hurt tremendously. I did not know what it was. I had no idea what it was,” he said. 

Giuliani said that after Gill began yelling “curse words,” he “turned around and said that I was a woman killer — you kill women, your party kills women,” adding that he “might have made a reference to the word abortion in there.” 

“And I said, ‘Well, I think we have to, let’s get him arrested. Let’s make an example out of him, because this is going on too much all around the country,’” he recalled. “And then, of course, we got the police, and the police charged him. I don’t believe I filed a complaint. The police charged him, and they enhanced it to second-degree assault, because of the nature of the assault.” 

Gill was initially charged with second-degree assault involving a person over the age of 65, the NYPD said. 

When police reviewed ShopRite’s surveillance footage and interviewed witnesses, however, they determined that Gill had tapped Giuliani on the back and said, “Hey, what’s up, scumbag,” the department said. 

.@RudyGiuliani says the video is deceptive and shown by the “dishonest media,” says woman beside him said force almost knocked her over too. Says “elderly people die most from falling down.” But like: https://t.co/wFelAoueUs

— Emily Ngo (@emilyngo) June 27, 2022

The charges were later downgraded to third-degree assault, third-degree menacing and second-degree harassment, all as misdemeanors, a spokesperson for the Richmond County District Attorney’s Office said. 

In a statement provided to NY1, the Legal Aid Society, which is representing Gill, called the downgraded charges “inconsistent with existing law.” 

“Our client merely patted Mr. Giuliani, who sustained nothing remotely resembling physical injuries, without malice to simply get his attention, as the video footage clearly showed,” the nonprofit said.

“He was then needlessly held by the NYPD in custody for over 24 hours,” it added. “Given Mr. Giuliani’s obsession with seeing his name in the press and his demonstrated propensity to distort the truth, we are happy to correct the record on exactly what occurred over the weekend on Staten Island.” 

Adams on Tuesday said he was in talks with NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell about the incident. 

“We feel that it was a falsely reported crime,” he said. “He’s a former mayor. I think it’s irresponsible for a former mayor.” 

“And when I heard the report that he was punched in the head and other things, when I heard that, I said, you know, ‘Why would someone assault the former mayor?’ Now, what if we didn’t have the video? This person would have been accused with a serious crime when all he did was pat the guy on the back,” he added. “You can’t use sensationalism to carry out your own agenda, and you can’t use the police to carry out your own agenda.”