A Port Authority cop who claimed he couldn’t work because he injured a bicep — then raked in his full salary plus disability while touring the country with his rock band “Cousin Sleaze” — pleaded guilty to the scam Tuesday.
Christopher Inserra, 32, faces just eight to 14 months behind bars when he’s sentenced Aug. 5. The plea deal allows him to dodge a prison term of up to 20 years.
Inserra must pay back $30,466.66 in disability payments he bilked from insurance company AFLAC.
But he doesn’t have to cough up any of the nearly $180,000 he was paid in salary while pretending his right arm was injured.
Inserra, who resigned from the PA on Monday, admitted in Brooklyn federal court that he pretended to be injured for about two years beginning in June 2010 so he could collect his $90,000 salary plus disability.
“During that time, you were the lead singer of a Brooklyn-based hardcore rock band,” Judge Leo Glasser noted.
“You repeatedly gripped the microphone and jumped around the stage while flailing your right arm in a rapid back-and-forth motion.”
In a brief statement in court, where his gal pal sat in the front row of the gallery nervously tapping her foot, Inserra said, “I did receive an injury on the job.”
“At some point after that, I was recuperated enough to return back to work on full duty, but I did not return.”
Inserra claimed to have hurt his arm while transporting an injured co-worker.
In September 2011, Inserra told doctors he had difficulty using his right hand and that his pain level was an 8 on a scale from 1 to 10, federal prosecutors have said.
But that pain didn’t stop Inserra from performing with Cousin Sleaze in Maryland, North Carolina and Florida, screaming lyrics such as, “The enemy eats away at your will/So you cannot resist the very poison that grinds you into this pitiful state of being.”
When band members posted videos of those performances on their YouTube page, federal investigators downloaded the footage and used it to charge him with fraud.
Inserra refused to speak or express any remorse as he left the Downtown Brooklyn courthouse.
“Those guys [PA cops] make a lot of money. Why’d he have to steal more?” a law-enforcement source said.