Metro

B’klyn man guilty of stealing $100K in benefits by dressing up as dead mom

What a “Psycho!”

A Brooklyn man who snubbed a deal that could have sprung him from jail could instead serve dozens of years in prison after a jury convicted him today of stealing more than $100,000 in government benefits – by dressing up as his dead mom.

Two videos of Thomas Prusik-Parkin’s wacky Norman Bates-like stunt – in which he wore a red dress and a platinum wig – were aired for jurors during the grand larceny trial.

But the admitted admirer of the murderous innkeeper from the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock classic continued to insist he didn’t play dress-up games to pull off the creepy con after his mom’s 2003 death.

“He maintains it wasn’t him in either video,” defense lawyer Morris Shamuil said. “He never impersonated his mother, never wore her clothing.

“It was somebody else. He doesn’t know who it was.”

The slight, bearded man had no reaction as jurors found him guilty of grand larceny, mortgage fraud and criminal possession of a forged instrument.

Prusik-Parkin faces up to 83 years when he is sentenced May 21, according to the DA.

Prosecutors had earlier dangled a deal in which he could have walked out of jail with time served following his 2009 arrest.

Prusik-Parkin turned up his nose at the offer.

“He knew he could be released immediately if he pleaded guilty,” Shamuil said. “But he wasn’t going to plead guilty to something he didn’t do.”

Prusik-Parkin’s kooky cross-dressing caper collapsed in 2009 when he donned the matronly getup to tell Brooklyn prosecutors he was being ripped off by a man who bought out of foreclosure the $2.2 million Park Slope building deeded to him by his mom.

By then, prosecutors charged, he had been cashing his dead mom’s Social Security benefits for years.

Irene Prusik, an actress, was 73 when she died in 2003.

A Social Security investigator testified during the nearly two-week trial that the agency found out about her death in 2008.

“Yet, they were still sending money to her from January 2009 to June 2009, they were doing direct deposit,” Shamuil said during closing arguments. “If they knew she was dead, why were they still giving her money?”

The defense lawyer also said that whoever posed as Irene Prusik in the videos must have done a convincing job.

“They didn’t know it was an impostor,” he said. “They never even made an attempt to pull the wig off.”