Fallen hedge-fund honcho Ezra Merkin appears to have come to the end of the legal road in his stubborn three-year, $2 million battle against a 71-year-old pediatrician.
The doctor, Noel Wiederhorn, of Wyckoff, NJ, may finally get what’s coming to him.
A New York appeals court yesterday rejected Merkin’s latest effort to squash a 2010 arbitration ruling ordering him to fork over $1.75 million to Wiederhorn, who invested $1.46 million with Merkin in 2003 and 2004.
Wiederhorn sued Merkin alleging the fallen billionaire invested his nest egg with Ponzi king Bernie Madoff without his knowledge.
The five-judge state court Appellate Division panel backed the initial $1.75 million award determined by the arbitration panel.
The panel also swatted aside Merkin’s attempt to have the doctor pay $1.6 million in legal fees.
Wiederhorn’s lawyer, David Bamberger, said the award has ballooned to $1.95 million as it is subject to 9 percent annual interest.
“After three long years of litigation, I am amazed that this ordeal is almost finished,” Wiederhorn told The Post.
Merkin’s options are not totally dead, but his chances for another appeal are slim, experts said. He could, for example, ask the appeals court for a “reconsideration.”
A spokesman for Merkin declined to comment.
In court documents last June, Merkin revealed that he had spent $1.6 million fighting Wiederhorn — which is nearly the amount he was initially ordered to pay.
Merkin, who lives in a posh 18-room duplex at 740 Park Ave., faces a slew of lawsuits over his losses in Madoff, including a scathing lawsuit by the New York Attorney General.