‘BAIT’ & SWITCH

Prison used gal to trap perv, then punished her: suit

PRISON OFFICIALS, after using an unwitting female inmate as “bait” to nab a randy corrections officer, made her life miserable once she refused to cooperate, a federal lawsuit charges.

Prisoner Yekatrina Pusepa, in a 60-page federal document, claims state corrections officials threw her to the wolves after she spurned their overtures in the probe.

They even allegedly looked the other way when an inmate brutally beat Pusepa in a recreation yard at their Westchester County prison, sending her to the infirmary with injuries to her face, head, neck and arms.

“They punished her for being a victim of sexual abuse,” said Daniel McGuinness, a lawyer representing Pusepa.

The 27-year-old inmate seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages in the suit filed Monday, alleging prison officials targeted her for the jailhouse romance with Corrections Officer Ruben Illa (photo left).

Pusepa’s penal problems began when Illa started wooing the inmate in late 2014 despite state laws barring sexual contact between guards and inmates.

Authorities were aware of the illegal relationship and were determined to make a case against the officer — without alerting the unwitting Pusepa (photo right), court papers alleged.

“In effect, in a misguided effort to catch C.O. Illa in the act, prison officials held plaintiff out as bait without her consent and with deliberate indifference to her safety,” according to the Manhattan Federal Court filing.

When summoned by prison officials investigating Illa in December 2015, Pusepa refused to answer questions and landed herself in a prison nightmare.

She spent eight months locked alone inside a cell for 23 hours a day after high-ranking correction officers cooked up a scam where she was accused of conspiring to escape from the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, according to the suit.

Illa, 34, pleaded guilty last month to filing false paperwork as a coverup for the romance and was expected to receive three years of probation at a December sentencing.

“This is a matter that is best heard in a court of law, rather than in the court of public opinion,” Illa’s lawyer, Matthew Gartenberg, told the Daily News.

Pusepa is finishing an 8½-year sentence for stabbing her then-boyfriend in the chest with a kitchen knife. She’s due for release in 2019.

A Department of Corrections spokesman called Pusepa’s allegations baseless.

“In short, the plaintiff engaged in activity that violated the rules, regulations and policy,” the spokesman said in an emailed statement.

Pusepa, after declining to cooperate for months in the Illa investigation, eventually did — and was moved out of solitary.