A professional con man has been named the prime suspect in the savage necktie murder of a rich globetrotting widower inside his Upper East Side apartment last March, The Post has learned.

Steven Garland, 61, was free on $20,000 bail on an Indiana securities fraud case when he allegedly strangled Christopher Cooley, 78, with his own necktie in his East 64th Street apartment off Madison Avenue.

The NYPD on Friday confirmed that the thrice-divorced Garland – who has two prior felony grand larceny convictions – was a suspect in the slaying.

Indiana court papers show that Garland scribbled a note on Jan. 7, 2016, informing the judge that he was traveling to Manhattan to receive medical care for sinus cancer at New York Presbyterian Hospital.

That’s where he apparently met Cooley, who was being treated for his own health issues at the hospital, police sources said.

On March 16, Cooley’s decomposing corpse was found on his living room couch with the necktie wrapped twice around his neck after the super conducted a wellness check.

Police believe Garland was trying to work a scam on Cooley when things took a turn for the worse, sources said.

While he was in New York, Garland missed a Feb. 25 court date in his fraud case, and the Indiana judge revoked his bail and issued a bench warrant, court papers state.

The NYPD arrested Garland on the warrant and matched Cooley’s blood to DNA found on the suspect’s shoes, sources said.

Cops also matched Garland’s fingerprints to those found on a broken table lamp near Cooley’s body, sources said.

Instead of charging Garland with Cooley’s murder, the Manhattan DA’s Office had him extradited back to Indiana to face sentencing in the securities case.

Before he was sentenced, Garland apologized profusely to the Indiana court for swindling women and children out of their life savings – never once mentioning Cooley’s murder.

“I am so sorry for what I did. I am going to serve my time, learn my lesson and never come back,” Garland wrote in a presentencing investigation statement to Hamilton County Judge Paul A. Felix.

“You will have no problems with me ever. I will do what I have to, to make up for my crime and never come back. Ever,” he vowed.

The Indiana judge was blindsided by Garland’s link to the murder.

“I don’t like hearing that I had a defendant released out on bond and was a suspect in a murder,” Felix told The Post on Saturday.

Indiana prosecutor Matthew Kestian said the Manhattan DA’s Office informed him about Garland’s alleged involvement in the murder, but he asked for the ex-con to be extradited back to Hamilton County so he could be sentenced to two years in prison under a plea deal.

“I was doing my job,” Kestian told The Post.

A spokeswoman for the Manhattan DA’s Office declined to comment on the issue.

On June 30, Garland pleaded guilty to two felonies counts of fraudulent or deceitful act in the offer, sale or purchase of a security.

He is currently serving his two year term at Plainfield Correctional Facility in Plainfield, Ind.

His expected release date is August 2018.

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