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HE CRIES FOR HIMSELF – SUSPECT WAS ‘WHINING LIKE A LITTLE GIRL’ – BUT NOT FOR SLAIN NICOLE: COPS

Police yesterday busted the teen punk who allegedly shot aspiring actress Nicole duFresne – but the crybaby put on his own performance, moaning and complaining that he was sick while taking no responsibility for the coldblooded slaying.

Rudy Fleming, 19, “was whining like a little girl,” a law-enforcement source scoffed.

“I don’t feel good,” the hood complained, lolling his head and pretending to be dizzy as detectives tried to question him.

He appeared on the verge of tears, clenching his eyes shut with his lips quivering, when he was led out of the 13th Precinct yesterday after being slapped with charges of first- and second-degree murder, robbery and criminal possession of a weapon.

Fleming was busted at the ferry terminal in Staten Island around midnight yesterday after being fingered by relatives for fatally shooting duFresne, 28, during an amateurish robbery in Manhattan’s Lower East Side early last Thursday.

Fleming was part of a group that accosted the actress and three of her friends.

DuFresne, a Minnesota native who was out at a local bar celebrating a new job, had told the thug, “What are you going to do, shoot us?” after he allegedly pistol-whipped her fiancé, Jeffrey Sparks, 28, and menaced their friends at the corner of Rivington and Clinton streets.

Fleming was released from prison last June after serving more than two years for pointing a gun at four cops who had picked him up for truancy in 2001.

Sources said a stolen .357 Taurus revolver that Fleming used in the killing, as well as the light-colored scarf he was seen wearing in a surveillance videotape that night, were recovered in a relative’s apartment in the Baruch Houses on the Lower East Side, where he had been staying recently.

“We believe we have the shooter,” said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

Fleming’s 18-year-old cousin, David Simmon of Brooklyn, was charged with attempted robbery in connection with the attack on duFresne.

“I’m sorry for what happened, I didn’t know it was going to happen, I had nothing to do with it,” Simmon said as he was led out of the 7th Precinct last night.

Simmon last year pleaded guilty to a knifepoint robbery in his Bed-Stuy neighborhood and is scheduled to be sentenced in March.

A third person, a 15-year-old boy who was with the group that night, has also been charged in the attack.

Servisio Simmon, 23, and his 17-year-old brother, Servano – cousins of David Simmon and Fleming – were believed to have been with them during duFresne’s murder. They were being questioned by police yesterday, but are not likely to be charged.

Their father, Servano Simmon, said he allowed his godson Fleming to stay in his Baruch House apartment in recent weeks.

“I tried to help him – and look what he did to those poor people,” the father said. “This has taken a toll on me. How would you feel if you had someone staying at your house and he killed someone?”

Simmon said Fleming had been at his house Sunday before leaving to go out.

After he left, Simmon’s younger son told his father he witnessed the slaying.

“After I talked to my son, I told him to talk to the cops. I said this is awful,” said Simmon, adding that his younger son decided to talk to police.

At noon Sunday, police nabbed David Simmon and the 15-year-old in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and picked up Servisio Simmon in the same neighborhood three hours later.

At 10 p.m., cops went to the Baruch House apartment to take Servano Simmon in for questioning.

Two hours later, they nabbed Fleming at the Staten Island Ferry terminal.

Two girls also believed to have been with the group that night have not been located by police, but sources said they’re unlikely to be charged.

DuFresne’s family reacted with joy when they were told the news.

“We’re very pleased with the progress and the effort that the police have put in,” said her father, Thomas duFresne, from his Florida home. “You’ve got a great police force in Manhattan.”

The police “gave me a great deal of confidence in their ability to get their job done. I was confident, but this is fast. They got this done fast, and that is even better.”

He said the family will now concentrate on raising money for a performing-arts scholarship fund in his daughter’s memory at her alma mater, Emerson College in Boston.

Asked what should happen to her shooter, he said, “Life in prison with parole would be appropriate in my mind.”

Nicole’s aunt, Mary Page, said “Awesome!” when told the alleged shooter was in custody.

“Our whole mission in this was to catch the perpetrator, catch the killer,” said Page from her home in Minnesota. “Thank God that that’s the outcome of it.”

Scott Nath, who was with his girlfriend, duFresne and duFresne’s fiancé during the robbery, said of the arrests, “It’s good, it’s great, it’s fantastic.”

“I’m glad that they moved forward on it, very, very much,” said Nath, a New Yorker who yesterday was in Seattle, where a party was held Sunday night in duFresne’s memory at an arts center where she had performed during her residence in that city.

Sources yesterday said they believe the tragic path toward duFresne’s killing began early last Thursday, when Fleming, David Simmon, their relatives, and a few others were hanging out in the Lower East Side and saw a 22-year-old man whom they accosted and tried to rob.

Fleming allegedly pulled a gun and pistol-whipped the man, who pulled out a cellphone and tried to call for help, spurring his assailants to run off.

Cops believe the group then took a subway to Brooklyn, but soon after arriving there, Fleming urged them to go back to Manhattan, which they did.

After getting off the train, they walked toward the Baruch Houses, and encountered duFresne, her fiancé and the other couple, who were on their way home after a night of partying.

Additional reporting by Erin Calabrese, Jamie Schram, Bridget Harrison, Leonard Greene, Larry Celona and Tatiana Deligiannakis