Scammer guilty in slay of pal

A QUEENS man was convicted Wednesday of luring his friend, a Croatian historian, from Europe to New York with the promise of a new life and then killing him with an antique revolver.

Alexander Bonich, 52, hatched an elaborate plot to offer his friend and academic William Klinger, 42, a college teaching spot and an apartment in Astoria, which he sold him for $85,000, according to the Queens district attorney’s office.

“But it was all a lie,” District Attorney Richard Brown said. “There was no job waiting for Klinger, and the apartment he’d bought was actually rented by the defendant’s elderly mother.”

In January 2015, as the two men strolled in Astoria Park, Bonich shot Klinger in the back of the head. A jury convicted him after two hours of deliberations.

Bonich will be sentenced June 14, officials said.

He faces 25 years to life in prison.