It may be curtains for Carl Kruger.
The state senator told confidants he’ll announce his resignation by the end of the summer, a prelude to a potential guilty plea in a wide-ranging pay-to-play corruption scandal, sources told The Post.
Sources said the embattled Brooklyn Democrat is expected to resign for two reasons: love and self-interest. Kruger wants to cut a better deal for himself and his live-in boyfriend — who is also charged in the scheme.
“The importance of his decision is so that he can negotiate better for his boyfriend,” said an Albany source.
“It’s better to be able to negotiate the terms of your own surrender,” the source added.
But Kruger, 61, said he is not going anywhere.
“I am absolutely not resigning, and I will continue to do what I’ve been doing for the last 18 years,” he said yesterday.
Federal prosecutors charged Kruger in March with pocketing close to $1 million in bribes between 2006 and 2010 from lobbyist Richard Lipsky, former Brookdale Hospital CEO David Rosen, Brooklyn developer Aaron Malinsky, and other hospital officials.
Kruger’s lawyer denied he’s thinking about a deal.
“Carl Kruger has no intention whatsoever of resigning his position as a New York State Senator, nor does he have any intention of pleading guilty to the federal criminal case pending before Judge Rakoff,” said his attorney Benjamin Brafman. “To the contrary. All of the evidence we have reviewed to date only enforces our position that Senator Kruger is not guilty of any criminal conduct.”