Gal’s alive, but held by pimps: cops

THE LAWYER for a bullied Bronx teen charged with fatally slashing his classmate went on the attack Wednesday, portraying the victim as the aggressor.

“He was pummeled before he took any action,” attorney Robert Feldman said of his client, Abel Cedeno, 18, outside of Bronx Criminal Court.

“They ran up to him, thinking that Abel Cedeno was too much of a sissy, too effeminate, too much of an openly gay kid to do anything.

“Well, guess what?” Feldman added. “They were wrong.”

Feldman offered the stirring defense after a glassy-eyed Cedeno pleaded not guilty to manslaughter charges.

The courtroom was packed with Cedeno’s supporters, along with grieving friends and relatives of victim Matthew McCree, 15.

Cedeno’s lawyers told the judge that the bisexual teen was relentlessly bullied and attacked by gang members — and routinely ignored by teachers and administrators who failed to pro- tect him.

“This incident occurred not because of some disease and defect of Mr. Cedeno,” defense lawyer Christopher Lynn told the judge. “But some disease and defect in that school.”

Cedeno is being held on $500,000 bail. He’s due back in court on Nov. 29.

Prosecutors say Cedeno stabbed McCree and a second teen, Ariane Laboy, in front of a class full of horrified students and two teachers at the Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation.

Laboy survived the Sept. 27 attack.

Cedeno has claimed that he “snapped” after enduring months of anti-gay slurs and other abuse from classmates.

Cops have said he had no history with the slain McCree.

Outside the courthouse, McCree’s mother, Louna Dennis, was joined by dozens of supporters holding signs that read, “Justice for Matthew.”

“Looking at Abel Cedeno for the first time since he killed my son, I was angry. I was pissed,” said Dennis, 34. “’Cause he has his life. He lived past 15.”

“Cedeno’s parents can go visit him on his birthday,” she added.

“You know where I gotta go to visit my son? The cemetery …after my son was in his classroom, where I sent him, where he should have been saved, protected, and he was not.”

The mother insisted that she raised a “damn good son” who never bullied Cedeno.

“Matthew was loved and he loved everyone,” Dennis said. “In fact, if Abel Cedeno was being bullied. I feel sorry. I’m sorry for him. But he was not being bullied by my boy.”

Dennis and her lawyer Sanford Rubenstein called for the firing of

Schools Chancellor Ch ll C Carmen F Fariña. iñ

“Certainly the problems at this school not only existed at the time of this wrongful killing, but also exist to this day,” Rubenstein said.

Education Department spokeswoman Toya Holness said an investigation into the school’s handling of the incident is ongoing.

“This is a heartbreaking tragedy,” Holness said. “The chancellor has visited Wildlife several times to meet with educators and families and provide support.”

The incident marked the city’s first school killing since 1993.

Principal Astrid Jacobo was yanked from the Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation a month after the grisly stabbing.

Feldman, Cedeno’s toughtalking lawyer, has a history of badmouthing crime victims.

The attorney got chewed out by a judge last year while defending a Rikers Island bigshot accused of ordering the brutal beating of an inmate.

Feldman took to Facebook to slam the victim as a “lying stoned retard.” A MISSING Pennsylvania woman believed to be the victim of sex traffickers has likely been shuttled between pimps and moved out of New York, the Daily News has learned.

Cops do think Corinna Slusser is still alive, offering her family the first bit of good news since the 19-year-old was last spotted at a Queens hotel on Sept. 20.

“(Detectives) believe that she is out of New York State,” said a high-ranking NYPD source with knowledge of the case. “They are trying to determine her whereabouts.”

Investigators looking for Slusser had feared the woman was moved from her homebase in Harlem or killed after she had filed assault charges against the pimp who lured her to the city from Bloomsburg, Pa.

She left her town in March to be with her pimp, whom she called “her daddy,” according to relatives.

“There is no indication she is subject to foul play,” a source said, but added that nothing is certain.

Members of the NYPD’s vice human trafficking team believe she has been handed off to several different pimps since her disappearance. Her name has come up in several vice investigations over the last few weeks, police said.

Slusser’s family reported her missing on Sept. 12, after she didn’t show up for her grandfather’s funeral in Florida.