Arturo Gatti’s wife

BY Harold Emert In Rio De Janeiro and Samuel Goldsmith In New York DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Boxing legend Arturo Gatti’s sexy stripper-wife choked the life out of him with her purse strap while he slept in a swanky Brazilian resort, cops charged Sunday.

Amanda Carine Barbosa Rodrigues, a 23-year-old former exotic dancer, looked unfazed as cops escorted her out of a police station in Recife, Brazil.

The stunner’s eyes were hidden by giant designer sunglasses as she walked to a police cruiser in low-rise blue jeans and a clingy white top that showed off the toned physique that first caught Gatti’s eye.

The busty bombshell’s purse was found stained with blood in their rented apartment at the luxurious Dorisol Resort in the turquoise-water paradise town of Porto de Galinhas.

“She is the only suspect,” a police spokesman said.

The couple – who had met while she danced at a club in Brazil – were vacationing there to celebrate a second honeymoon after rekindling their relationship following a brief breakup, friends said.

Carl Moretti, who promoted many of Gatti’s fights, said he always worried the 37-year-old former Jersey City star spent too much time in strip clubs picking up the wrong women.

“Among friends who knew him, no one felt that this was a good relationship,” Moretti said. “The relationship was not based on love. It could get violent at times.”

Moretti said he had heard through Gatti’s manager, Pat Lynch, that Rodrigues threw a lamp at Gatti on a recent trip to Montreal.

“They were always fighting,” he said. “It never stopped. But clearly, you didn’t think that it would lead to this.”

Authorities detained the tight-bodied beauty early yesterday because of contradictions in her story when she was first questioned. Police called her version of what had happened “inconsistent and incoherent.”

Rodrigues could not explain how she had spent nearly 10hours in the room without noticing that Gatti was dead, authorities said.

The couple went to a bar Friday night and began to argue, witnesses said. Rodrigues told cops Gatti got drunk, hit her and pushed her to the floor.

Witnesses said the two were still fighting when they returned from the bar early Saturday morning.

Rodrigues was being examined at the Medical Legal Institute near their vacation spot and will spend the night in prison.

Gatti, who won 40 of his 49 professional fights, including 31 by knockout, was raised in Montreal but became a star in Atlantic City, where he won his first title. He moved to New Jersey in 1991 and delighted crowds there until his retirement in 2007.

Nicknamed Thunder, he won world championships in two different weight classes, 130 pounds and 140pounds.

“She murdered her husband and left her child an orphan,” said Lou DiBella, a former executive at HBO who put together several of Gatti’s more memorable fights.

“Now she’s going to spend the rest of her life in prison. This is just too much a tragedy.”

Photo by Clemilson Campos/JC Imagem/PAGOS