CHICAGO— A suburban man is charged with a hate crime after he walked up to a Chicago cab driver, asked him if he was Muslim and then beat him when he responded “yes,” prosecutors said.

The driver was stopped at a red light near Division and Larrabee streets about 3 a.m. Feb. 21 when 37-year-old John Alletto walked up, opened the driver’s door “and asked if he was Muslim,” prosecutors said.

The 42-year-old driver replied, “yes,” and Alletto began to punch the man in his head, neck and body, Assistant State’s Attorney Lorraine Scaduto said during a bond hearing Wednesday.

At that point, the driver’s passenger got out of the cab, prosecutors said.

When a witness approached, Alletto yelled out that the driver was Muslim, according to Scaduto. The witness said it was racist to attack a Muslim and called Alletto “a racist,” Scaduto said.

Alletto then turned toward the witness, and the two began to fight, according to prosecutors.

Police later described Alletto as someone who “appeared highly intoxicated,” Scaduto said.

Alletto, of southwest suburban La Grange, initially was charged in February with misdemeanor battery, court records show. Upon further investigation, prosecutors this week upgraded charges to include felony hate crime, aggravated battery in a public place and aggravated battery to a taxi driver.

On Wednesday, Alletto’s defense attorney called the attack “an anomaly” and an “isolated incident.” 

Alletto has bipolar disorder, the attorney said, and had mixed his medication with alcohol in a moment of “ill-advised foolishness.”

Renner Larson, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Chicago’s Muslim community has been on edge in recent months amid a rise in “the mainstreaming of anti-Muslim rhetoric.”

According to prosecutors, Alletto’s drunken February attack was captured on the surveillance camera in the cabbie’s car. The Edgewater-based driver suffered swelling and bruising on his neck.

Cook County Judge Laura Sullivan on Wednesday set bail for Aletto at $25,000. Alletto posted the requisite 10 percent and was free by Wednesday evening, court records show.

According to his defense attorney, Alletto previously worked as an investment broker and “never had anything like this happen in his life.”