Staten Island supermarket worker, 39, is released WITHOUT bail after having charges downgraded to misdemeanor assault for slapping Giuliani hard on the back and calling him a 'scumbag': Rudy says 'he could have killed me'

• Daniel Gill, 39, a ShopRite worker, accosted the former mayor about his stance on abortion
• Giuliani said he staggered forward from the impact and could've fallen and 'cracked his skull'
• Store security video of the encounter shows Gill made light contact with the former mayor's back
• Giuliani doesn't seem unsteady on his feet in the recording and the man walks away
• Gill was arrested and charged with second degree assault, but Staten Island prosecutors downgraded the charges a misdemeanor

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani claims he could've been seriously 'killed' after a supermarket worker slapped him on the back in Staten Island on Sunday during a campaign stop for his son, Andrew, who is running for governor.

'His intent was to cause serious harm,' Giuliani said in a Facebook video. 'I could have fallen and cracked my skull and died.'

Giuliani, once called America's Mayor, was shaking hands and passing out flyers at the ShopRite on Veterans Road at half-past 3 p.m., when a grocery store clerk, Daniel Gill, 39, came up behind and gave him a tap on the back, saying 'What's up, scumbag?'

The former mayor said he had just gotten out of the bathroom and was standing with a crowd of supporters when the man accosted him.

'All of the sudden, I feel this 'Bam!' on my back,' Giuliani told the New York Post. 'I don't know if they helped me not fall down, but I just about fell down.'

Gill was arrested on second degree assault, a felony, police said, but prosecutors later downgraded to misdemeanor assault, plus other misdemeanor charges, according to the New York Daily News.

He was arraigned Monday afternoon and released without bail.

'The charges facing Daniel Gill, who has no previous contact with the criminal legal system, are inconsistent with existing law,' Legal Aid Society spokesman Redmond Haskins said in a statement. '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.'

Legal Aid says that it was Giuliani's crew who was harassing Gill, when one of the ex-mayor's entourage followed the grocery store worker, poked him in the chest and told him the was going to be 'locked up.' 

'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,' Haskins said.

Outside his home in Staten Island after his arraignment, Gill complained that he was the face of the economic downturn.

Despite having a college degree in mass communications, he said he's only been able to land a minimum wage job.

ShopRite has suspended him from the job, pending termination. 

On Facebook, in recounting the interaction, the former mayor, who was credited with cleaning up crime in New York City in the 1990s, said he felt like he was hit with a 'boulder.'

'It knocked me forward a step or two,' he said. 'It didn't knock me down, but it hurt tremendously. I didn't know what it was.'

Video of the incident shows the man approach Giuliani from behind and firmly tap the former mayor's back as he walks by. 

Giuliani doesn't appear to stagger, but a woman standing next to him gently rubs his back as they both turn toward the supermarket worker. 

'You, you're one of the people that's gonna kill women. You're gonna kill women,' ' Giuliani said Gill told him. 'You and your f–king friend are gonna kill women.' 

Giuliani, who also worked as a lawyer for the 2020 Trump presidential campaign in trying unsuccessfully to over turn the election amid unfounded claims of voter fraud, said the woman standing next to him touched his back, 'felt it and massaged it.'

'He hit him so hard that, I felt it,' Rita Rugova, an eyewitness, told the MailOnline. 

Rugova said she was about to ask for Giuliani's photo when Gill stormed passed.

'He's a senior citizen,' she said. 'No matter what your political views are, no one should be hit.'

A retired first-grade detective who was standing there when it happened didn't initially make any moves to arrest Gill, who continued to berate Giuliani about his stance on abortion.

'He kept cursing and menacing,' Giuliani said, recalling how he turned to the detective and said 'Let's get him arrested. Let's make an example out of him.'

Giuliani refused medical treatment at the scene, but said he has an appointment to get the injury checked out by his doctor on Monday. 

The supermarket worker appeared to be taking his frustration over the U.S. Supreme Court's Friday decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, nullifying the constitutional right to abortion. 

'It underlines something that's happening nationwide,' Giuliani said. 'It could have been much worse. This idea that you attack people, who, 'In may case I'm pro-life, but respectful of the position of other people. I'm not protesting against other people. I respect the fact that there's a division of opinion in this country. There are many good people of good faith with other opinions'

He called New York's abortion law 'sick and corrupt' and said it allows women to terminate a pregnancy two days before childbirth. 

Giuliani said that he's normally very popular in Staten Island, saying he carried 85 percent of the county when he ran for mayor. 

Staten Island is one of the only five boroughs where the number registered Republican voters, 95,308, come close to the number of registered Democrats, 124,491.