Metro

Incendiary charge vs. Qns. candidate

This congressional candidate has a burning secret.

Jeffrey Gottlieb, a late entry into the hotly contested Democratic primary to replace Rep. Gary Ackerman in Queens’ 6th District, was charged with setting a 1971 arson fire in his Flushing apartment.

The blaze destroyed the home and damaged some half-dozen others in the building.

Gottlieb, 70, a retired schoolteacher and longtime Democratic operative, apparently kept the crime a secret for years.

But court documents obtained by The Post show he was arrested on Dec. 28, 1971, and charged with second-degree arson, a felony.

Gottlieb used gasoline to torch the apartment on 35th Avenue. His wife and infant son weren’t home, and no one else in the building was hurt, according to a source familiar with the case.

Gottlieb was treated at an upstate psychiatric hospital, the source said.

Gottlieb, who was a teacher at Benjamin Cardozo HS in Bayside at the time, took a “leave without pay for restoration of health” on April, 15, 1972, and returned to the school on Sept. 5, 1972, according to the Department of Education.

He plea-bargained the arson charge down to fourth-degree criminal mischief on Oct. 13, 1972, court records show.

Gottlieb managed to keep his teaching job, retiring in 2000. He collects a pension of about $54,000 a year and now works for the Board of Elections as a $27,927-a-year clerk.

Gottlieb, who got divorced after the fire and remarried, entered the congressional contest this month, joining a race with three other Democratic candidates.

He was seen by some as a plant by the Queens Democratic machine in order to split the Jewish vote in the northeast Queens district and give the primary to party favorite Assemblywoman Grace Meng, who declined comment.

“The county organization is panicked by the strength of my candidacy, but cynically fleecing Jewish voters with a sham candidacy by a longtime party hack is particularly appalling,” charged Assemblyman Rory Lancman, who, like Gottlieb, is Jewish.

“His whole candidacy has been a scam from the beginning, so nothing I’ve learned now really surprises me,” Lancman said.

A phone call to Gottlieb’s Kew Gardens Hills home was returned by Jay Golub, his spokesman.

“I’m not aware of it,” Golub said of the arson.

Later, he changed his story, saying that Gottlieb had told him of the crime and that it shouldn’t disqualify him from running.

“He went through some bad times,” Golub said. “He momentarily allowed himself not to do the right thing.”

Additional reporting by Kathianne Boniello