Fat Nick is a big fat racist.
A Queens jury yesterday found Nicholas Minucci guilty of second-degree assault as a hate crime for beating a black man with a baseball bat while shouting the n-word.
Minucci, 20, now faces up to 25 years behind bars for battering victim Glenn Moore after chasing him down with a pal and using the racially inflammatory language on June 29, 2005.
“The jury has sent out a message that crimes predicated on hate cannot be tolerated,” said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.
But the trial’s focus on the modern meaning of the n-word appeared to be all for nothing. A juror last night told The Post the n-word had nothing to do with Minucci’s conviction.
“One thing that didn’t really have anything to do with it was the use of the word n—–,” said the 26-year-old female juror.
“It didn’t have anything to do with our decision. We looked closely at his written statement, the video and the audio, Moore’s testimony . . . and we tried to follow the law as strictly as the judge instructed us.”
Minucci – whose outspoken mom, Maria, was outside the courtroom when the verdict was read – sat pale-faced and impassive at the time.
His family members wept, but he said nothing after being asked by a court officer for his “word as a gentleman” that he wouldn’t act up when the verdict was read.
After the verdict, Moore said the conviction left him with mixed feelings.
“I’m very relieved. I just want to put it behind me and move forward,” he said, before adding that he empathized with Minucci’s family.
“Again, I apologize to his family, because you’re never satisfied sending somebody away for 25 years,” he told The Post. He said the verdict was nothing to “smile about or be happy.”
The jury convicted Minucci after just over one day of deliberations and a strange three-week trial that saw Fat Nick’s defense present experts claiming the n-word is so commonly used by rappers that it has lost much of its racist sting.
But the jury rejected that defense – and convicted Minucci not only of assault as a hate crime, but robbery as a hate crime, too. They also convicted him of possession of a weapon for wielding the bat and of possession of stolen property for taking some of Moore’s clothes.
About the only good news for Minucci is that the jury said “not guilty” to the top charge of first-degree hate assault, although the second-degree charge of bias robbery on which he was convicted carries the same maximum sentence of 25 years.
Minucci’s lawyer, Albert Gaudelli, said it was “absolutely not a hate crime.”
“He suffered because Howard Beach is synonymous with racism. That is not what happened here,” Gaudelli said.
He added his client has been “treated like a hardened serial rapist or a mad-dog murderer” behind bars for a year.
The defense had earlier argued that Minucci was nothing but a big “dope” who did not attack Moore because of any racial hatred.
The petty thug has always maintained he is not a bigot. He said he pursued Moore only because he thought the victim had come to Howard Beach to steal cars.
GUILTY
* 2nd-degree assault as a hate crime
* 1st-degree robbery as a hate crime with a dangerous instrument
* 2nd-degree robbery as a hate crime
* 2nd-degree robbery as a hate crime, aided by another
* Three counts of 5th-degree criminal possession of stolen property
* 4th-degree criminal possession of a weapon
NOT GUILTY
* 1st-degree assault as a hate crime
* 1st-degree assault
* 1st-degree robbery as a hate crime with serious physical injury
* 1st-degree robbery with serious physical injury not a hate crime