They finally cornered the scaredy rat in a dark Bronx closet.
Mob informer Kenny “The Rat” O’Donnell had been on the lam for three weeks when a judge mistakenly released him on bail, not knowing that he faced a 60-year sentence for robbery in New Jersey.
He was cowering in a closet at a pal’s home on Randall Avenue in The Bronx when US marshals turned up at 1 a.m. He was hauled back into Brooklyn federal court and ordered back to prison.
O’Donnell, 63, helped the feds nail scores of wiseguys in the 1980s before carrying out a string of robberies in New York and New Jersey while on federal probation.
The lifelong con was convicted of the New Jersey heists in 1994 but escaped later that year by bribing a guard. He was eventually nabbed and just finished a 14-year prison stint last month.