Metro

Infamous child killer still owes millions to birth mom

Joel Steinberg is not only one of the city’s most notorious ​child abusers — he’s also a deadbeat, a new lawsuit charges.

The biological mom of Steinberg’s tragic, illegally adopted daughter, Lisa​ — whom he beat to death in 1987 — says the brute still hasn’t paid a cent toward the $15 million civil judgment she won against him a decade ago.

“I don’t even want to acknowledge him,’’ said mom Michele Launders to The Post on Tuesday.

Launders, 52, declined to talk about her 6-year-old daughter’s death — a horrific abuse case that stunned the city and nation — saying, “I’m just doing one thing at a time.”

Launders was an unwed Long Island teen when she handed over her infant to Steinberg, then a lawyer, after paying him a $500 adoption fee.

But instead of carrying through with a legal adoption, Steinberg took the baby home to live in the Greenwich Village apartment he shared with girlfriend Hedda Nussbaum.

Lisa died in November 1987, after Steinberg smacked her before heading out to dinner with Nussbaum and then returning home to get high on cocaine, prosecutors said.

Lisa was left unconscious for 10 hours before she was finally taken to the hospital.

Nussbaum testified at the murder trial that her abusive partner was a cocaine addict who would routinely hit Lisa for simply looking at him.

Cops also found another adopted boy in the couple’s home tied to a playpen and drinking from a bottle of rotten milk.

Steinberg was released from prison in 2004 after 17 years behind bars.

Launders landed the money judgment against him in 2004, her Manhattan suit says.

The fiend has maintained his innocence, including in a 2005 interview with The Post in which he clung to language in little Lisa’s death certificate that says she “choked on her own vomit.”

The 71-year-old Steinberg has been living in Harlem and working construction jobs since his early release on a manslaughter conviction.

An elderly man who answered the buzzer of a West 123rd Street address listed for Steinberg said he wasn’t home but then added, “I remember this. They decided he doesn’t owe her.”

Launders’ lawyer, Wayne Schaefer, said he is asking the court to approve a renewal of the $15 million judgment, given all the time that has lapsed since it was awarded.

The money judgment had been tied up in appeals to the state’s highest court.

A 2007 Court of Appeals ruling wound up dismissing two counts in the negligence and wrongful-death suit but left the overall judgment intact, Schaefer says in the court papers.

The lawyer noted the ruling still blamed Steinberg for failing to call 911 when the girl was dying.

When asked Tuesday about the chance of Launders actually collecting any money from Steinberg, Schaefer acknowledged, “That remains to be seen.”

Launders previously collected a $1 million settlement from the city for failing to protect the girl from Steinberg.

Nussbaum has since changed her name and moved out of state.

Additional reporting by Reuven Fenton