Metro

Karate man worst disability scammer: DA

A former NYPD cop accused of teaching black-belt karate while collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in disability checks was blasted in Manhattan court Monday as “one of the most flagrant’’ scammers in a $400 million pension-fraud scheme.

Former Queens Officer Louis Hurtado collected $470,395.20 over 26 years — the most dough over the longest stretch for any participant in the fraud, prosecutors said.

“He’s also one of the most flagrant abusers, posting videos of himself on YouTube performing martial arts . . . [and traveling] on at least 18 flights from 2006 to 2013, including to Mexico and Jamaica,’’ while claiming he was too depressed to leave his house, travel or work, said Assistant District Attorney Christopher Santora.

Hurtado, 60, flew from his home in Pasco, Fla., to be arraigned on grand-larceny and other raps.

While 16 other defendants also were arraigned Monday — processed in groups of three or four and released without bail — Hurtado was singled out to appear solo before the judge and forced to shell out $20,000 to walk.

Glenn Galanos, a 45-year-old former city cop who just ran a half-marathon in the fall, was among those arraigned.

He and Hurtado are two of 106 people busted last week in the scam, which included scores of retired cops and firefighters lying about suffering emotional stress from 9/11 to land hefty Social Security disability checks, authorities said.

Some of the defendants claiming 9/11 posttraumatic stress weren’t even at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, or ever worked the Ground Zero pile, officials said.

Hurtado originally retired from the NYPD on a three-quarters pension after “a severe automobile accident where his neck and spine were injured,’’ his lawyer, Steven Kartagener, said after Monday’s hearing.

Hurtado then applied for a federal disability pension on top of that because “he had suffered a lot of depression because of his back injury,’’ the lawyer said.

“He knows karate and teaches but not in a physical sense . . . He’s not out there chopping at blocks.’’

As for his jet-setting, “His girlfriend works as a travel agent,’’ the lawyer said.

But prosecutors said Hurtado — who boasts on his karate-studio Web site that he’s been a bodyguard for stars such as Sean Connery and James Caan — and the other defendants lied about psychological disabilities to gain Social Security payments of between $20,000 and $50,000 a year.

A law-enforcement source told The Post that a retired Queens detective on his first job with the Manhattan DA’s Office helped finally nail the suspected scammers.

The detective had just retired after more than 20 years with the NYPD and wanted a job with the DA’s office, the source said. So they agreed to take him on as “consultant’’ before deciding whether to hire him — and this was his first gig, the source said.

“They were looking for somebody undercover, and this guy was willing to do it to get the job,’’ the source said.

While authorities were aware of the scam, they needed someone to ask the ringleaders for help landing a fraudulent pension to get details on how it worked, the source said.

Additional reporting by Aaron Feis and Kate Sheehy