Ex-cop: I’m 9/11 scum

When cancer-stricken Ground Zero hero John Ferreyra filed his 9/11 compensation claim, the NYPD veteran hired an ex-cop-turned-lawyer — only to find seven years later that his longtime friend pocketed most of the $1 million payout.

Attorney Gustavo Vila admitted the callous betrayal of his client and colleague Thursday in White Plains Federal Court, pleading guilty to a single count of theft of government funds in the heartless scam. The attorney spent 90% of his client’s stolen funds, including payment for his taxes and checks worth more than $280,000 written to his then-wife and their son, authorities charged.

“I knowingly embezzled from the government ... from the Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund,” said Vila in a hearing attended by Ferreyra and his wife Lisa. “I knowingly did it. I knew it was a crime, and I have no excuse, and I am pleading guilty.”

His first-responder client received received only a single payment of $100,000 from the crooked ex-NYPD lieutenant after the 9/11 money was awarded in October 2016, then covered up his crime with bogus explanations that continued into January 2020, prosecutors said.

The ex-cop waited in vain for the rest of his overdue money, only to learn this past February that he was bilked by his former colleague and friend of two decades.

“The trust I had in Gus, we knew each other so long,” said Ferreyra, diagnosed in 2005 with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after months working at the toxic site. “We broke bread together. I had absolute trust in him ... And then delay after delay, and lies.”

Vila, 62, faces up to 10 years in prison on his plea, although prosecutors and the defense agreed on a sentencing range of 41 to 51 months. The defendant, free on bail pending a Feb. 5 sentencing, was hired by his friend to work on the case in 2013.

Ferreyra collected less than 10% of the $1,030,622 payment, with his lawyer writing checks from the compensation fund cash to pay his taxes, cover outstanding loans and enrich his family.

By the time the money was deposited in Vila’s bank account, he was already disbarred for a grand larceny conviction in an unrelated 2015 criminal case. Ferreyra, who was initially given