Butcher Of Brighton Beach Wanted To Kill Levi Aron

'How do you do that to a little kid? I only killed for business . . . I would have been New York’s hero.' —Maksim Gelman (above) on wishing he’d murdered Levi Aron, accused killer of Leiby Kletzky

Confessed killer Maksim Gelman says he planned to redeem himself — by committing one more murder New Yorkers would have hailed him for.

The butcher of Brighton Beach, who admitted to killing four people during a Brooklyn-to-Manhattan murder spree last February, told The Post in an exclusive jailhouse interview that he had regularly crossed paths behind bars with Levi Aron, the Brooklyn man accused of killing and dismembering 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky.

And Gelman began to plot Aron’s death.

“He’s sick,” Gelman said of Aron. “How do you do that to a little kid? I only killed for business.”

According to Gelman’s twisted reasoning, he thought that killing Aron would make him a “hero” to New Yorkers, despite his own trail of blood.

Gelman, 24, said he and Aron liked to watch “Two and a Half Men” and “American Idol” on TV. He said when a show or commercial with kids came on, Aron would smile and say he liked children.

Gelman said he planned to rip an electrical socket out of the wall, fashion it into a blade and use it to kill Aron. But Gelman shared his plans with a pal in a recorded telephone conversation, and Aron was soon transferred.

“I would have been New York’s hero,” Gelman said.

Gelman said he would have included cops in the 61st Precinct to his killing spree if he could have gotten to his gun stash, which he claims included an AK-47 and an Uzi.

“I wish I had a shootout with the 6-1,” Gelman said. “I was a drug dealer. The cops were the enemy.”

He also told The Post that he murdered several other people, starting when he was 18 and accidentally ran over two men in Sheepshead Bay. Gelman said he stopped and then, worried the victims might call 911, backed his car over the pedestrians several times to make sure they were dead.

Cops said there’s an open hit-and-run investigation in the 61st Precinct and they’re looking into his claim.

Gelman, who is being sentenced Wednesday, said he plans to tell authorities about the other murders in the hope of being moved to a federal facility, where he hopes to get Internet access and better food.

Gelman has been dubbed “Mad Maks” for the crime spree that took the lives of his stepfather, Aleksandr Kuznetsov; a woman Gelman was stalking, Yelena Bulchenko; her mother, Anna; and an innocent pedestrian he ran over, Stephen Tanenbaum.