Pedro Espada Jr. yesterday did the seemingly impossible.
He lost his infuriating swagger.
This little piggy politician is going straight from the courthouse to the hole where he belongs — federal prison.
As we watched in disbelief, righteous Judge Frederic Block ordered that Espada go directly to a dank pen populated with large and hairy criminals.
I wouldn’t touch the prison sushi on a bet.
I never thought I’d see this day. But flamboyant, entitled and unspeakably greedy Espada is going away — for five years!
But Pedro needn’t worry, whine or cry.
With Albany a raging cesspool of like-minded robbers, thugs and hungry degenerates — folks without a hint of Pedro’s impeccable fashion sense — he won’t be alone in his cell for too long.
Espada, 59, who tends toward Men’s Wearhouse, showed up in Brooklyn federal court nattily dressed in a yellow tie and navy suit.
As the judge lowered the boom — the greedy ex-pol had to be locked up immediately — the reality hit him in the face, wiping away his trademark smile.
He wasn’t going home.
No going back to his lavishly renovated Westchester house.
No gorging on lobster and raw fish, paid for courtesy of what the judge called Espada’s “personal piggy bank” — the now-shuttered, taxpayer-funded Soundview Health Clinic.
From 2005 to 2008, with Pedro as its president, he robbed Soundview, created to serve the poor, to the tune of at least a half-million dollars.
Meanwhile, the clinic had difficulty paying for syringes.
For Pedro, three hots and a cot is a dramatic fall for a man who once paid an $18 surcharge to relieve himself from the “burden” of having to remove the shell on a $100-plus lobster dinner he’d had delivered, prosecutors said in an eye-popping sentencing report.
As it dawned on Espada that he wasn’t going home again — not until he serves a five-year sentence that really amounts to a walk in the park — his once-defiant shoulders started to noticeably slump.
These are the same shoulders that, during his trial last year, sashayed into court like he was going to the circus.
Espada held press conferences outside in which he accused an FBI agent of using black magic to turn the jury against him.
The power of good versus evil prevailed yesterday. But the judge gave Espada a break — prosecutors wanted to lock him up for seven years.
He still got more time than chain-smoking ex-state Sen. Shirley Huntley, sentenced last month to a year-and-a-day for robbing a charity of $88,000.
He did a bit better than ex-state Sen. Carl Kruger, sentenced last year to seven years for taking more than $1 million in bribes.
It remains to be seen how he’ll do against former Sen. Malcolm Smith, charged with trying to bribe his way onto the New York City mayoral ballot.
Move over, Pedro. You’ll have plenty of company.