Metro

Nonagenarian avenged in thefts by 76-year-old ‘pal’

A 76-year-old Manhattan man will spend his weekends in jail for the next year — his sentence for stealing $330,000 from his 98-year-old buddy.

The shocking geezer-on-geezer predation happened last year in Midtown.

Septaugenarian Harry Abrams had run an unsuccessful money management business in a suite of offices, and had let his nonagenarian pal, lawyer Emanuel Baetich, use an office down the hall for years.

Baetich may have been pushing 100, but he still occasionally practiced law from his wheelchair for a few private clients.

“You’re like a father to me,” Abrams had explained, in letting his pal stay rent free, according to Elizabeth Loewy, the prosecutor who heads the Manhattan DA’s Elder Abuse Unit.

But when the older man broke his hip in July, 2009, landing in the hospital, the younger man started cleaning him out, swiping and redeeming $330,000 in certificates of deposit from Baetich’s unlocked office.

Abrams used the money to fund several failed businesses, and pay for clothes, groceries and a vacation in Puerto Rico.

He has pleaded guilty to all the charges against him — including grand larceny, possession of stolen property, forgery and money laundering — and since paid back $388,063.

Abrams had faced a maximum of 15 years in prison. The far-lighter sentence — handed down today in Manhattan Supreme Court — was agreed to by the victim, Loewy said.

Baetich — the oldest living graduate of St. John’s University — remains in a nursing home, and just wanted to be paid back and not to have to take his “friend” to trial, the prosecutor said.

The Manhattan DA’s elder abuse hotline is 212-335-8920.