A New York City prosecutor has been arrested on charges that he berated and then choked a woman at an Irish bar on the East Side of Manhattan.

Eli Cherkasky, 35, a Manhattan assistant district attorney since 2006, pleaded not guilty on Friday evening to charges of misdemeanor assault, obstruction of breathing, menacing and harassment stemming from an early-morning encounter on Nov. 1 at Failte Bar on Second Avenue.

According to a criminal complaint, Mr. Cherkasky, who recently attracted attention for the high-profile bribery indictments of three defense lawyers, grabbed the woman around 2 a.m. and repeatedly used obscenities and told her, “Why don’t you hit me.”

A few minutes later, the complaint says, Mr. Cherkasky used another obscenity as he pushed the woman onto a couch and then the floor, knelt over her and choked her. The attack caused her “substantial pain and a limited range of motion to her neck,” the complaint says. The woman was treated at a hospital.