http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/44018.htm
April 6, 2005 -- Is the wedding still on? Fuhgeddaboudit!
"Sopranos" star Vincent Pastore — who played "Big Pussy" on the HBO hit mob drama until he got rubbed out at the end of Season 2 — has been "hit" again, this time with an assault rap for allegedly beating up his long-time girlfriend and fiancée.
Make that ex-fiancée.
"She looks like she went a few rounds in a prizefight," said a close friend of the victim, on-again, off-again gal pal Lisa Regina, whom Pastore met when she played a bit role as one of Tony Soprano's first-season goomahs.
"He beat the s--- out of her," said the friend.
Pastore, 58, is denying the charges — namely, misdemeanor assault, which carries a sentence of up to a year in jail. He turned himself in early yesterday morning, and was released without bail by late afternoon.
His only remarks on leaving court? "Gimme one with mustard and kraut."
Pastore made a bee line for the hotdog cart right outside of Manhattan Criminal Court as soon as he was released from custody, leaving his celebrity lawyer, Dominic Barbara, waiting curbside at their stretch black Cadillac limo.
"I didn't eat all day!" the gargantuan actor griped. He had no comment for reporters — although earlier in the day, as he was "perp walked" into "the Tombs" in lower Manhattan, he rumbled at photographers, "This is not the red carpet."
Prosecutors say Pastore and Regina were in a car on Mott Street in Little Italy Saturday when he punched her in the back of the head, slammed her head down between the seats, smashing her eye on the gear shift.
Pastore then allegedly threw Regina, her purse and her overnight bag out of the car — causing her to hit her head on the car's door frame and her butt on the car's floorboard — before slamming the door on her and pulling away.
"This is a very gentle man who is anything but what the charges are against him," Barbara insisted.
Not so, say Regina's friends and neighbors. While this is the first time she has accused Pastore of beating her, they said, she has complained repeatedly of being "menaced," and having him throw objects at her.
Pastore's no-bail release allows him to travel anywhere he wants, so long as he returns for his May 5 court date.
Pastore double-checked that himself with the judge before leaving court.
"I have to go to California to work with ["Law & Order" TV producer] Dick Wolf," he name-dropped.
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