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MOGUL’S ARTFUL ‘DODGE’

He made a killing selling his high-tech engineering firm.

But ex-defense contractor Doyle McClendon claimed he was poor as a church mouse when it came time to pony up for a pricey piece of art he bought at the Park Avenue Armory’s annual art fair last year, a startling federal breach-of-contract lawsuit claims.

The former CEO of Chantilly, Va.,-based McClendon Corp. and his wife, Mary Alice, plunked down $500,000 in May 2007 toward a $4.2 million Impressionist painting from London-based Richard Green (Fine Paintings), according to the gallery’s suit, made public yesterday.

The couple agreed to pay the balance of $3.7 million by May 12, 2008.

But when Mary Alice McClendon went to the fine-arts fair last May and saw someone from the gallery, she asked for an extension until the end of July, the lawsuit says.

The gallery contacted her again on Aug. 1 – when she dropped a bombshell: She and her husband were getting divorced.

The gallery’s director, Jonathan Green, later spoke with Doyle McClendon – who brushed him off, saying he had “no money to pay at present” and that the gallery “would have to wait a year,” the lawsuit says.

Green suggested the nouveau poor couple borrow the money to make good, threatening legal action otherwise.

“You will have to sue me,” Doyle McClendon bluntly retorted, according to court papers.

McClendon reaped a cool $66 million from the sale of McClendon Corp.

The company does high-tech systems engineering and technical assistance for the Defense, Treasury and Justice departments, and also worked with elements of the intelligence community on spy satellites.

Doyle McClendon was active in the arts in Florida, where the couple maintained a home.

In September 2006, he was appointed to the board of directors of the Florida Orchestra in Tampa.

The McClendons could not be reached, and Green didn’t respond to an e-mailed request for comment.

bruce.golding@nypost.com