When cops stopped Rep. Vito Fossella for drunken driving, the married congressman said he was rushing to see his sick daughter on nearby Grimm St. – the home of the mystery woman who later plucked him from jail.

Fossella’s spokeswoman has insisted the single mom, Air Force Col. Laura Fay, 45, was only a “good friend,” but the Staten Island Republican implied to suburban D.C. cops that Fay’s 3-year-old was his.

“The subject stated that he was driving down from Washington, D.C., to Grimm St. because his daughter was sick and needed to go to the hospital,” a police report obtained by the Daily News reveals.

The report describes how Fossella, who has a wife and three children in New York, failed a sobriety test by reciting the alphabet wrong, swaying while standing on one leg and stumbling while trying to walk a straight line.

“When I looked at his lips, I noticed they were stained red,” the Alexandria, Va., cop wrote. “He stated that he had about two or three glasses of wine. …”

Cops said Fossella had a blood-alcohol level of 0.17, more than twice the legal limit of 0.08.

Seven hours after his arrest, Fossella was released to Fay, who lives 3 miles from thespot where cops stopped him for running a red light.

Susan Del Percio, a crisis management consultant hired after the arrest, refused to answer “yes” or “no” when asked if Fossella fathered Fay’s daughter.

“This is a demeaning and highly inappropriate question,” she said yesterday. She gave the same answer when asked the question the previous day.

Asked if Fossella was driving to Fay’s house, she said, “We will not discuss the particulars of the legal case.” She has said Fossella met Fay while she was working as a legislative liaison for the Air Force.

Unless there’s a plea deal, the congressman will have to serve a mandatory five days in jail.

He was back on the job yesterday, attending a morning hearing and appearing on the House floor for a series of procedural votes in the afternoon. The disgraced lawmaker walked sheepishly into the chamber, his hands jammed into the pockets of his charcoal-colored suit.

Over the course of about 45 minutes he spent on the floor, Fossella was greeted with handshakes and hugs from a half-dozen GOP lawmakers.

Fossella was part of a congressional delegation that went on a European junket in the summer of2003, records show. Fay was the chief military chaperon for former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), a source on the trip said. In October 2003, Fay was reassigned from Air Force Legislative Liaison to an intelligence desk job at the Pentagon, the Air Force told The News.

Fay split with then-husband Guy Shoaf the day after Christmas in 2003, about five months after the trip. It was her second divorce. They had no children. She retired from the military in September 2006. Before his drunken night, the representative attended a ceremony for the Irish prime minister and an event for the Super Bowl-winning Giants.

Fossella arrived at the Logan Tavern after 10 p.m. with a friend named Brian, witnesses who were at the bar said.

The congressman and his pal were asked to leave the bar after Brian fell down and smashed a table.

Fossella rents a condo owned by his uncle, Frank Fossella, in a tony building that rises above the Navy Memorial on Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, Del Percio said.

Fossella’s wife, Mary Pat, sat quietly at the Staten Island news conference where Fossella apologized for his arrest on Friday. She declined to comment. A source familiar with the family said the wife did not know her husband had a car in Washington and was shocked by news of his arrest. “I think she’s more angry than sad …,” the source said.

A man who arrived at Fay’s home to water her plants yesterday said she was in Coral Gables, Fla. Fay’s sister Linda lives in a small town in Washington State. Her husband, Tom Himmelberger, said his wife was out shopping. “Her comment would be no comment,” he said.

Steve Labernik, Fay’s brother, refused to talk about her at his Spencer, Iowa, home. “I haven’t heard from her lately,” he said. With Celeste Katz,

Source: NY Daily News

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