SLAP IN SLAY LIE

6 mos. for E. Side killers’ pal who misled cops

The third man busted in connection to a horrific Upper East Side homicide was sentenced to jail on Friday, as the victim’s father scolded him for failing to help his son.

Max Gemma, 31, admitted to lying to cops about what happened after Joseph Comunale was murdered inside an Upper East Side apartment on Nov. 13, 2016, and was promised a sentence of six months behind bars.

James Rackover, 27, and pal Lawrence (Larry) Dilione, 30, beat and stabbed the 26-year-old Comunale in Rackover’s Sutton Place pad, tried to dismember him, tossed him out a window and buried him a shallow, fiery grave.

“The best I can say about you is that you sat there and watched Dilione and Rackover kill my son … ” the victim’s father, Patsy Comunale, told Gemma at the hearing in Manhattan Supreme Court.

Coward. You will never be free,” Comunale said, adding that Gemma is “just as evil” as his murderous pals.

Comunale asked Justice James Burke to “think about what might have happened” if Gemma had called cops immediately after the slaying.

It took a massive threeday search to find Comuanle’s brutalized and burned corpse more than an hour away in Oceanport, N.J.

The devastated father said Gemma — who left Rackover’s apartment shortly after the violence — “could have saved Joey’s life,” if his son was still alive.

If not, a call to police would have “at least my family wouldn’t have had to endure three days of desperately looking for my son.”

Gemma’s lawyer said the Jersey City man was asleep on the couch in Rackover’s living room, woke up to Dilione and Comunale fighting — and saw the Connecticut man get knocked unconscious.

The attorney, Mark Bederow, said Gemma “has accepted his responsibly, as he’s been convicted of lying to the police.”

“He was not involved in a conspiracy of two that led to the awful circumstances in which Joseph Comunale faced at the end of his life,” Bederow added.

After listening to Comunale’s grieving dad, Gemma addressed the victim’s family and friends.

“Every day I think about the choice I made … I am truly sorry and apologize,” he said.

Rackover, who was found guilty in the killing, was sentenced in November to 282⁄3 years in prison.

Dilione pleaded guilty and got 23 years in prison in February.

Rackover is the “surrogate son” of celebrity diamond dealer Jeffrey Rackover, who lived in the same E. 59th St. luxury building.