Asst. DA weary of slay witnesses

Are they witnesses, or do they just play them in court?

That’s the question a Queens prosecutor has for a private eye who seems to have 20/20 vision when it comes to finding people who can exonerate his client.

Private investigator Manuel Gomez has been working to free accused murderer Ajaya Neale, whose mother hired the former cop in August. Out on $100,000 bail, Neale is awaiting trial in the killing of reputed Bloods member Joel Rashko.

Authorities haven’t made public a motive for the killing, but there have been reports it was gang-related and that Neale, of St. Albans, was a member of the rival Crips.

Rashko, 24, of Newport News, Va., was in the city with his brother and some friends when he was shot on May 10, 2014, while watching a baseball game in Roy Wilkens Park in Jamaica — Crips territory. He died two days later.

Neale, 30, was charged with murder, criminal possession of a loaded weapon and reckless endangerment.

“I’m taking the fall for something I didn’t do,” Neale, the son of a minister, told Channel 4 New York in October.

Still, prosecutors question whether witnesses are being coached or coerced to vouch for Neale’s innocence.

At a pretrial hearing last week, eyewitness Erica King testified that Gomez “put words” in her mouth and asked her to sign an affidavit that Neale was not at the murder scene.

Another witness allegedly identified someone else to Gomez as the shooter during his investigation.

Gomez, who charged Neale’s family a $6,000 flat rate, had 34 complaints lodged against him with the Civilian Complaint Review Board and was dismissed from the NYPD before become a private investigator.

“You’re not a detective … your job is to follow the evidence … not to cherry-pick … you don’t decide a person’s innocence,” Assistant District Attorney Karen Ross told him during the hearing.

Gomez said he reviewed police reports, witness statements and photographs related to the investigation and concluded that Neale’s a patsy.

“You knew who the murderer was,” Gomez fired at Ross. He accused the prosecutor of “hiding evidence” that points to another shooter.

Queens Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Holder ordered Gomez to stop speaking out of turn.

Holder will announce his decision at a later date as to whether the alibi witnesses’ statements were obtained in a timely fashion and will be allowed during Neale’s trial.