ATTICA, NY — Even the cop-killer pal of disgraced NYPD boss Corey Pegues thinks Pegues is just a con man looking for “another hustle.”
David McClary told The Post that Pegues, a retired deputy inspector, fabricated their friendship so he could make a quick buck with a book deal.
“Corey Pegues ain’t no friend of mine,” the cold-blooded killer said in an interview at Attica Correctional Facility on Wednesday. “He’s never been a friend of mine.”
Pegues bragged that he was once a gangbanging buddy of McClary, whom he called “my man” while pitching his autobiography on a podcast called the “Combat Jack Show.”
But McClary said Pegues lied about their friendship — the way he admittedly lied to NYPD officials about his drug-dealing past to get a job on the force in the 1980s.
McClary said he believes Pegues is dropping his name and exaggerating his own thug life to supplement his $135,000-a-year disability pension.
“This is all for money. He’s retired and needs another hustle, another paycheck . . . Everything he’s been saying about his history is total bulls–t.”
McClary is currently serving 25 years to life for killing rookie cop Eddie Byrne in 1988.
Cops outraged by Pegues’ claims tore down his portrait from a wall in Brooklyn’s 67th Precinct station house, which Pegues ran before retiring on disability last year, sources told The Post Wednesday.
It was replaced with a framed photo of Byrne.
Nassau County cops seized three guns from Pegues’ Hempstead, LI, home in the wake of The Post’s exposé.
The NYPD is also trying to strip Pegues of his tax-free $135,000 pension, sources said.
His publicist didn’t respond to repeated requests for an interview.
