Metro

$780G Merrill ‘crock’broker

A mediocre stockbroker duped Wall Street titan Merrill Lynch into believing he was a portfolio powerhouse — deserving of a $780,000 loan his first day on the job — then used the dough to buy a Ferrari and split, prosecutors said yesterday.

Steven Mandala, 29, surrendered yesterday to face indictment for grand larceny, money laundering, identity theft and other crimes in the scheme.

“I didn’t even know he got arrested,” said the suspect’s mother, Inhi Mandala, when she was told the pudgy broker had been arraigned and held on $500,000 bond in Manhattan Criminal Court. “I don’t know the whole story.”

Steven, who lives in a luxury Chelsea rental, worked as a broker at Maxim Group from 2004 until early 2009, according to the firm’s in-house lawyers, Edward Rose and Jim Siegel.

Mandala, who earned about $100,000 annually at Maxim, last year applied for a job at Merrill Lynch, falsely claiming he was a partner at Maxim, that he managed $300 million in client assets and earned $765,000 in compensation against $1.5 million in revenue he generated, the Manhattan DA’s Office said. After Mandala produced fake pay stubs and tax forms to substantiate his bogus claims about his Maxim work, Merrill hired him on April 24, the DA said.

On the same day, Merrill loaned him $780,000 as an incentive — an amount that would have been forgiven on a prorated basis if he stayed there for eight years.

After depositing the money into his parents’ bank account, Mandala went hog wild.

A week later, he withdrew $245,580 to buy a red 2006 Ferrari in the name of his dad, the indictment charges. “Over the next two months, Mandala frequently did not show up at his new job and brought in only two or three clients with assets of about $20,000,” the DA said.

On June 29, Mandala resigned via e-mail and asked Merrill Lynch to throw out his personal effects, the DA said. Among them were credit cards obtained in the name of Carlos Gomes — the dad of Mandala’s girlfriend — which the broker had allegedly used to rack up tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

Mandala’s lawyer, Franklin Rothman, said Gomes’ ID had been stolen by his daughter, “who had a bone to pick with her own father.”

A Merrill Lynch spokesman said the firm is trying to recoup the money it loaned Mandala. A source said the firm has frozen $300,000 of his assets.

douglas.montero@nypost.com