'Bitch Set Me Up!'

That appears to be the very flimsy excuse offered up by New Jersey knucklehead Thomas Earle to his wife after he was busted at a New York hotel with Eliot Spitzer's hooker, as we noted Thursday.

Seriously, I don't think I've heard this one since Marion Barry was caught hitting the crackpipe in a hotel about 20 years ago.

Even more pathetic, it appears Alisa Earle might even buy it, or maybe she's just going to make this schlub squirm.

The New Jersey asphalt prince who's been stepping out with the hot-bodied hooker who brought down Gov. Eliot Spitzer told his beautiful bride he was "set up" by the notorious prostitute - and his wife is buying the story, sources told The Post.

But just in the past month, construction hunk Thomas "TJ" Earle was bragging to a pal about flirting with Ashley "Kristen" Dupre at a restaurant: "She was hanging all over me last night - I could have had her for free!" sources said yesterday.

A week later, a source saw Dupre with Earle at a local bar, where she was "drooling all over him like a schoolgirl."

The Post exclusively revealed yesterday that 23-year-old Dupre and Earle, 35, stayed at the Gramercy Park Hotel Tuesday night after spending a long, romantic day together drinking, dining and shopping - as apparently unsuspecting wife Alisa stayed at home in Wall, NJ, with the Earles' two young daughters.

Even more shockingly, sources said that Earle and his gorgeous blond wife spend their wedding anniversary at that same hotel each year.

"I think [Dupre's] getting off on being a home-wrecker," said an outraged source, who knows the trollop.

During her big day walking the streets of the Big Apple with Earle, Dupre was dressed in an ultra-short leather skirt and hooker heels, displaying the charms that enticed Spitzer, who resigned in March after a Feb. 13 rendezvous with the escort in a Washington hotel room came to light.

After a reporter tried to confront Alisa and TJ at their McMansion about his tryst, the wayward hubby told his wife that Dupre "set him up" - and 36-year-old Alisa believes him, sources said.

But just before going to New York with Dupre, a source said TJ told Alisa that he was going on a business trip to Colorado. He asked his wife to go with him, knowing that she'd turn him down, the source added.

Spitzer Hooker Still Getting Around

No word whether she was getting $4000 a hour from this guy, but she might want to keep a lower profile, especially when she's out and about with wealthy married men.

Oh, and this guy may want to start visiting divorce lawyers, because you can bet your ass his wife is going to freak out when she sees today's New York Post.

She sure gets around.

Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer's hot-bodied hooker Ashley "Kristen" Dupre spent a day - and night - catting around Manhattan with the hunky, rich scion of a major New Jersey asphalt company who lives with a beautiful wife and their two kids fewer than two miles from Dupre's family home.

The pretty woman, 23, and 35-year-old Thomas J. "TJ" Earle were spied ducking into the Gramercy Park Hotel, where they rented a room Tuesday after a long day drinking, dining, shopping and snuggling together in limos around the Big Apple, sources told The Post.

The two then separately left the Gramercy the next afternoon, after spending much of 24 hours in each other's company. They walked out of the hotel 10 minutes apart, seemingly to avoid being photographed together.

Dupre, the curvy prostitute known as "Kristen," whose trysts with Spitzer led to his resignation, then hopped into a black Range Rover and sped off. She refused to answer questions from a reporter. A closed-mouthed Earle caught a ride home in a black Chevy Suburban.

The dumbass Earle has some unfortunate timing.

Earle's cozy date with Dupre might have been kept hush-hush if they had not chosen to reserve a room at the Gramercy on the same day Lindsay Lohan and her DJ lover, Samantha Ronson, were staying there. Lohan's presence drew a swarm of paparazzi, one of whom recognized Dupre when she got out of a car with Earle.

D'oh!

Some amusing irony as well.

The Earle Companies' Web site says, "We understand that our reputation for honesty and integrity took many years to build, but that it can be destroyed in just a few moments."