If Any Animal Can Have Deep Pockets It’s This One

I don’t know who would represent a dog in a suit but someone will have to:

The Daily News caught up to Leona Helmsley’s multimillionaire Maltese as she went out for a stroll in sunny Sarasota, Fla.

Sporting a festive red bandana and a brightly patterned leash, the feisty four-legged princess frolicked under palm trees and alongside a lake with an unknown caretaker.

It was a rare sighting of the late Queen of Mean’s pampered pooch, who inherited $12 million when Helmsley died at the age of 87 in August — the largest bequest in Helmsley’s $4 billion will.

The fluffy white furball has been in hiding since then, whisked to Florida on a private plane this fall to escape death threats that dogged her at Helmsley’s lavish Connecticut spread.

But trouble is still brewing for the 8-year-old pooch, whose luxurious lifestyle costs $300,000 a year for security, grooming and chef-prepared meals served on a silver tray.

Last week, Helmsley’s ex-housekeeper Zamfira Sfara, 48, sued to get her hands on Trouble’s bone-anza, claiming the dog mauled her repeatedly when she worked for Helmsley in 2004.

If Anything Can Cast A Pall Over A Funeral . . .

. . . it’s as situation like this:

As a throng of mourners converged on Staten Island yesterday to remember the life of one of the Fire Department’s “rising stars,” the specter of his murder seemed to loom over an already grim occasion.

In the morning chill, the crowd of firefighters, police, family and friends gathered around St. Charles R.C. Church in Oakwood watched with tearful eyes as the flag-draped casket of Supervising Fire Marshal Douglas Mercereau was pulled from a waiting hearse. But many of those in attendance — including about a dozen plainclothes police officers — also cast suspicious glances at his widow, Janet Redmond-Mercereau, the sole suspect in the slaying of the 38-year-old Oakwood man.

And while sobbing echoed inside the semicircular chapel, several of those in attendance noted that Mrs. Redmond-Mercereau sat dry-eyed and stonefaced as her husband was eulogized by his brother, Thomas; his boss, Supervising Fire Marshal Louis Garcia, and Monsignor Thomas Bergin, who’d been his principal at Monsignor Farrell High School.

“It made me uncomfortable,” said Westerleigh resident Fran Hogan, a friend of the Mercereau family who attended the funeral yesterday, in respect of the suspicions swirling around Mrs. Redmond-Mercereau.

“But this was about Doug, and we stayed focused on that. The family wanted to give him a respectable, dignified funeral, and we did that,” Ms. Hogan added.

Didn’t Your Mama Teach You Nothing? It’s “Put Out Or Get Out,” Not “Put Out And Get Out” . . .

Anyone will tell you that when consorting with jailbait down at the park, it’s considered proper form to offer her a ride home afterwards:

As it is, Christopher Coppinger’s callousness after a 13-year-old girl performed a sex act in a South Beach park contributed to his prison sentence.

Coppinger, 18, of Bay Terrace, was sentenced yesterday to 10 months in jail under a plea agreement last month in which the troubled teen admitted to attempted second-degree criminal sexual act.

He and his friend Jason Talanquines, 18, were caught with two underage girls at Ocean Breeze Park in August.

Justice Leonard P. Rienzi granted Coppinger youthful offender status, which frequently indicates probation. The judge based the jail term on Coppinger’s criminal record, the youth of the two girls and “your failure to give a ride.”

. . .

Prosecutors charged that Coppinger and Talanquines picked up the two adolescents at the Grasmere train station, then drove to a wooded area in Ocean Breeze Park, where the girls serviced them. When Coppinger refused to drive the girls home and left them at the park, the 13-year-old girl called 911 and reported the incident.

J-E-T-S — Breasts, Breasts, Breasts!

It’s convenient to view the Meadowlands as a giant red-light district for boorish New York sports fans:

At halftime of the Jets’ home game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, several hundred men lined one of Giants Stadium’s two pedestrian ramps at Gate D. Three deep in some areas, they whistled and jumped up and down. Then they began an obscenity-laced chant, demanding that the few women in the gathering expose their breasts.

When one woman appeared to be on the verge of obliging, the hooting and hollering intensified. But then she walked away, and plastic beer bottles and spit went flying. Boos swept through the crowd of unsatisfied men.

Marco Hoffner, an 18-year-old from Lacey Township, N.J., was expecting to see more. Not from the Jets — they pulled off a big upset over the Steelers. He wanted more from the alternative halftime show that, according to many fans, has been a staple at Jets home games for years.

“Very disappointed, because we’re used to seeing a lot,” Hoffner said.

The mood of previous Gate D crowds — captured on video clips posted on YouTube — sometimes bordered on hostile, not unlike the spirit of infamously aggressive European soccer hooligans. One clip online shows a woman being groped by a man standing next to her.

Sunday’s scene played out for about 20 minutes, and at least one woman granted the men’s request, setting off a roar as if the former star running back Curtis Martin had just scored a touchdown. Martin was actually nearby, being honored on the field in the official halftime show, which had a far less intense audience.

And who thought the West Side Stadium would be a good thing? Oh yeah. May the (2-8!) Jets never, ever return from New Jersey.

Welcome To New York . . . Hey, Nice Bike

What you would do with — or who would buy — a motorcycle designed for a circus act is beyond me:

A gravity-defying act has come to a screeching halt since thieves in Jamaica left a circus family without a vital piece of equipment.

The motorcycle heist took place Sunday night in Roy Wilkins Park, where the Espanas are headlining in the Firehouse Circus.

The bike in question, a specially engineered Honda CR85 that Govian Espana has been trained to ride since the age of six, was stolen from the Espana family trailer while they were busy performing.

“This place, maybe eight minutes, tops, is (unguarded),” said Lisa Woodman-Espana. “We think (the perpetrators) must have been casing us.”

. . .

[The Espana family] traveled from their home in Florida this fall to participate in the Firehouse Circus, the brainchild of Bronx District Leader and former “Rappin’ Fireman” John Ruiz, who was performing Sunday night when the theft occurred.

“It is depressing,” Ruiz said, wearing blue-sequined fireman’s garb and a rhinestone helmet, “It was part of the act, the kids loved it. Everyone loved it.”

The “Globe of Death,” as it is known, is typically performed by 14-year-old Govian and his father, Ramon Espana. They each ride a motorcycle in a series of dizzying circles around Asia Espana, who bravely stands motionless at the base of the giant steel cage.