Kenny Yeller is now Kenny the Meek.
A notoriously cranky lawyer who got disbarred for screaming at judges and other attorneys was all apologies in court this morning as he copped a plea to tax evasion.
Kenneth Heller — whose irascible behavior earned him the nickname “Kenny Yeller” — agreed to cough up nearly $10 million in penalties in a bid to avoid the slammer for his Swiss banking scheme.
The ailing octogenarian admitted that he didn’t pay “a substantial amount of taxes” for 2006 through 2008 by stashing what the feds said was more than $26 million in overseas accounts at UBS and Wegelin & Co.
“Mr. Heller, did you know what you were doing was wrong and unlawful?” Manhattan federal Judge Kevin Castel asked him.
“I did your honor,” Heller replied.
“May I apologize to the court?”
Heller, 82, also apologized “for my hearing” after saying he was suffering from memory loss and cancer he blamed on lifting an atomic bomb “with my bare hands” during a World War II transport mission.
In addition to re-paying the IRS, Heller’s plea bargain calls for up to 37 months behind bars when he’s sentenced on Sept. 27, but prosecutor David Massey said “the government agrees a sentence below the stipulated guidelines is warranted.”
Massey cited Heller’s “mental health and serious physical health concerns,” noting that he “had to seek authority from higher authorities in my office” to cut the deal.
Heller, who shuffled out of court wearing a navy blue “USA” cap, declined comment afterward and — in a flash of his old persona — waved his cane at a Post photographer.