Metro

Brooklyn’s new DA fought for slumlord slay jurisdiction

The grisly slaying of a kidnapped Hasidic slumlord has touched off an unusual law-and-order turf war over the investigation and prosecution of the case, sources said.

The NYPD is hunting for the killer of Menachem “Max” Stark, whose smoldering body was found Friday in a Long Island garbage bin. Whoever is held responsible for the murder will face a Brooklyn jury.

That’s because new District Attorney Ken Thompson fought hard for what is certain to be a headline-grabbing investigation — and, if suspects are caught, murder trial, sources said.

A spokesman for Nassau County DA Kathleen Rice said Thompson and the NYPD will handle the case but did not explain why. A spokeswoman for Thompson would not confirm the shift.

Stark, 39, a reputed slumlord with a long enemies list and mounting debt, was kidnapped Thursday night and then murdered, according to authorities. His suffocated and smoldering body was found Friday in a trash bin at a Great Neck gas station.

Stark could have been murdered in Brooklyn, where he was brazenly abducted outside his Greenpoint real-estate office Thursday night. But jurisdiction is usually determined by where a victim’s body is found, according to law-enforcement sources.

For example, the Brooklyn DA’s office prosecuted murder suspect Darryl Littlejohn, a club bouncer, after graduate student Imette St. Guillen was taken from a Manhattan tavern in 2006, raped and killed in Littlejohn’s Queens apartment and dumped in Brooklyn off the Belt Parkway.

“If Nassau County keeps the case and solves it, a lot of [Brooklyn] chiefs, inspectors and captains will look bad,” a source said.