NY- A sexy Long Island teen revealed in an explosive interview yesterday that she and married Met catcher Paul Lo Duca have been carrying on a steamy affair since April, enjoying secret trysts at his pad and sharing intimate phone calls.
“He’s fun – for an older man,” bombshell brunette Krista Guterman, 19, said of the All-Star stud, whose wife recently slapped him with divorce papers charging adultery.
Lo Duca also was hit yesterday with the announcement that the Mets will probe claims that he has heavy gambling debts.
As the ball player tried to deflect both stories, Guterman told how she first met the 34-year-old dad while with a pal at “18 and Over Night” at the trendy Bridgeview bar in Long Beach in April. Lo Duca had just returned from spring training, she said, and she was home from college.
The fashion major said she and her friend, who corroborated Guterman’s story to The Post, used a contact to land a spot in the hip club’s VIP section, a celebrity stomping ground. That night, Met and Cincinnati Red players abounded, Guterman said.
The tanned teen said she and her pal were first approached by a member of Lo Duca’s entourage, who pointed out the hunky player and asked if they knew who he was.
Guterman said she had no idea – she doesn’t watch baseball.
“Paul thinks you’re cute,” Guterman said Lo Duca’s pal told her.
“I thought he was cute,” too, the teen said. “But I didn’t have any idea who he was.”
She said Lo Duca then approached her and her friend, and the trio partied until 3 a.m.
The teen said that as the night wound down, Lo Duca’s pal suggested that she and her girlfriend give him a lift to his posh spread in Oyster Bay.
The young women declined, saying they wanted to get home. But before she left, Guterman gave Lo Duca her cellphone number.
She said that less than hour after leaving the bar, she received a casual text message from Lo Duca, telling her “hi.” She said they met again soon after, and he began calling her several times a week.
The first time they went out, Guterman said, the red-hot slugger told her he was divorced – and that he had agreed to give his ex-wife $7 million in the settlement.
She said she learned that he was still married to his wife of six years, Sonia, only after reading The Post on Monday.
“I didn’t know he was married. If I knew he was married, I wouldn’t have dated him,” insisted the leggy teen, who lives with her parents.
Asked how she felt after learning that the catcher was still hitched, Guterman replied, “He’s a scumbag for lying to me.”
The teen said that since Lo Duca is on the road a lot, they’re left to burn up the phone lines until they can hook up. Her parents knew about the relationship, she said, adding that on nights they were getting together, he would pick her up at the house.
The couple went out only once in public, Guterman said, to a Manhattan restaurant.
Otherwise, “We would go to his place [in Oyster Bay] and hang out,” Guterman said.
She described their dating as casual, explaining that they could both still date other people. Guterman said she didn’t expect it to go anywhere.
“It was fun,” she said. “I would call it a fling.”
When asked if he was her boyfriend, she said, “No. We dated.”
“He’s a fun guy. He has a good personality,” Guterman said. “We’re good friends. We still talk a lot on the phone.”
The teen even dedicated part of her myspace.com Web page to Lo Duca – and posted a sexy photo of her perched on his lap at The Coyote bar in Island Park.
She also showed two photos of the slugger in action – tagged to romantic lyrics from Jessica Simpson’s song “Angels.”
“And through it all, he offers me protection. A lot of love and affection. Whether I’m right or wrong . . . my love,” it read under the photos, which mysteriously disappeared along with the rest of her page yesterday.
At another place on the page, Guterman wrote: “I have an obsession with the Mets . . . OBV [obviously]!!!!”
Guterman said she last heard from the Brooklyn-born Lo Duca when “he called me a couple of nights ago.”
Lo Duca wanted to warn her that some news about him might hit the papers in the coming days, she said.
She said that two days ago, he text- messaged her, saying, “I have to speak to you.”
Guterman, who works at a clothing store and baby sits, said she didn’t get back to him because of time constraints, and then the story of his impending divorce broke in The Post.
The teen said Lo Duca never mentioned his wife but did talk about the married couple’s 21-month-old daughter, Bella.
When shown a photo of Lo Duca’s Playboy-model wife, Guterman exclaimed, “She’s hot!”
Sonia Lo Duca filed for divorce from her hubby on June 30, charging adultery.
A rep for the baseball player last night said he “knew nothing about” Guterman’s claims.
“I don’t know what to say . . . This is so far out of the blue. It can’t be true,” the spokesman said.
Sonia Lo Duca’s mom has said she was told that it was a fling – not a long-term affair – that was the basis of the adultery allegation against Lo Duca.
Lo Duca told WFAN radio yesterday that his divorce “is just one of those things where we’re going our separate ways.
“There’s more written than I thought would be written,” Lo Duca said. “So I am hoping there is nothing else. There shouldn’t be anything else.
“There are no skeletons in the closet. Nothing.”
Lo Duca’s wife was slated to be part of the interview – and the radio station aired promos touting the pair’s upcoming chat as late as Monday evening. But a Met rep suddenly phoned the station at around 7 p.m. to say that Sonia would not be on air the next day, a source said.
At a later press conference before last night’s Met matchup against the San Diego Padres, Lo Duca – who had a hit in the Amazins’ 3-2 victory – said he and his wife were “great friends.
“I love my wife,” he said, dismissing claims she might have been a “gold digger. My first thought is, I don’t want this to be a distraction for my team,” Lo Duca said. “We’re having a good year. I feel like I’ve been a part of it.”
The catcher certainly has – and his hot streak has heated up since his wife slapped him with the divorce papers.
He has batted .430 since July 1, the day after she filed to end their marriage.
Lo Duca refused to take questions regarding his crumbling marriage.
A woman answering the phone at the Lo Duca family home in Arizona said everyone is trying to stay focused on the All-Star catcher’s career upswing.
“We love our brother, and we’re supporting him with everything’s he’s going through,” she said. “It’s a private family affair.”
Before hanging up, the woman, who identified herself as Lo Duca’s sister-in-law, said, “Go, Mets.”
According to the divorce petition filed by Sonia Lo Duca, the couple “ceased to live together as husband and wife on or about April 19.”
A source close to Paul Lo Duca has told The Post that his reputed extramarital dalliances began after the pair’s separation.
As for claims that Lo Duca is a heavy gambler, the ballplayer said on WFAN and at his press conference that while he likes to bet, he’s not an addict.
“I like horses. I own thoroughbreds. I breed them. It’s something I want to do. It’s my love,” Lo Duca said outside the locker room at Shea Stadium.
“I don’t have a gambling problem,” he said. “I do bet on horses legally. I have an online account . . . I have no gambling debt. I have no past debts that were paid – noth ing. All those allegations are false.”
A source told The Post that Major League Baseball knew that Lo Duca was gambling while he was with the Florida Marlins, but they have no information that he ever got in over his head.
MLB spokesman Pat Courtney said the league would not comment on Lo Duca’s statements yesterday.
But the Mets said they’ll be investigating the claims of too-heavy betting.
“We’re definitely going to ask him about that,” said General Manager Omar Minaya, referring to whether Lo Duca may have run up gambling debts. “Once we ask him, we’ll go from there.”
Lo Duca hung out with his buddy, Kentucky Derby-winning jockey Mike Smith, at Saratoga Springs on Monday, enjoying the races on a Met off day before attending a charity dinner that night.