Now, boozy fight death is ‘homicide’

The August death of a hard-partying grandfather in his girlfriend’s Brooklyn apartment after a boozy night with another couple lurched violently off the rails was ruled a homicide, police said Thursday.

Joseph Breina, 74, was found unconscious in the seventh-floor Coney Island residence on Aug. 15 and died a few hours after the bottle-swinging dispute, police said. Cops responded to the building after a 911 call of an assault in progress to find the unresponsive Breina with his girlfriend — who told cops she was cooking in the kitchen and did not see exactly what happened.

Breina died of head trauma at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn, with the city medical examiner ruling the case a homicide four months later.

Breina and his 37-year-old girlfriend were visiting with a married couple in her apartment when things turned ugly. The 44-year-old husband and his spouse left after Breina allegedly tried to clock the wife with a vodka bottle — but they returned to look for a gold necklace lost in the scuffle.

Breina was in the shower and his girlfriend was in the kitchen when the couple came back, with the victim stepping out of the bathroom to confront the pair a second time, cops said.

The girlfriend discovered the unresponsive Breina, and prosecutors initially passed on charges over the sharply conflicting accounts of nwhat happened. Cops were unsure if Breina slipped and fell on his own or was assaulted by the couple.

No arrests have been made in Breina’s death. Coney Island neighbors of the girlfriend described Breina as the grandfather of three, recalling how he would travel down from Connecticut in a Mercedes to her Surf Ave. apartment.

Neighbor Brett Dobin, 43, described the residence as a “house of horrors” fueled by drinking and drug use.