Some Try Prozac . . .

. . . others push around a three-foot-tall crucifix in a granny cart:

She was depressed and needed Jesus, so she took Him home with her.

That was Dawn Piccolo’s explanation for her theft of a 3-foot wooden crucifix from St. Adalbert’s R.C. Church in Elm Park.

Ms. Piccolo, 37, of Elm Park was shipped off to jail yesterday following her guilty plea earlier this month to a count of fourth-degree grand larceny stemming from the theft of the crucifix.

Dressed in a black sweater and gray cargo pants, her blond hair piled atop her head, Ms. Piccolo did not speak when Justice Leonard P. Rienzi sentenced her to one year behind bars under the plea deal.

She’d been more forthcoming — and apologetic — following her arrest at her Morningstar Road home in March.

In a statement penned for police, Ms. Piccolo admitted suffering from anxiety and depression.

She denied “ever” using any illegal drugs, but said the medications prescribed to combat her depression “makes me turn into something I don’t want to be.”

“I am in need of help for my faults,” Ms. Piccolo wrote.

“I was in need of Christ. . . . Christ is the only thing that keeps me sane.”

The Rev. Eugene Carella of St. Adalbert’s noticed Ms. Piccolo when she showed up at the church on the morning of March 11. Discovering the theft of the crucifix, a staple at St. Adalbert’s for more than 40 years, he gave a description of the woman to police.

Cops canvassed the neighborhood, and three days later, a city Sanitation worker phoned Father Carella with word that a woman had been spotted with the crucifix in a pushcart.

The worker and Father Carella identified Ms. Piccolo through photos police took of the woman.

A detective returned the crucifix to the church in time for its Good Friday veneration, although the left arm was missing. It hasn’t been recovered.

As for Ms. Piccolo, “I hope one day to give Him my all,” she told cops.

And the church hopes that one day Ms. Piccolo will give all of Him back.

2008: The Year Prostitution Broke

Except for the inconvenient facts that prostitution is often about sex slavery and it is very rarely a victimless crime, Eliot Spitzer might still be governor and Sean Bell might still be alive — since, after all, the reason undercover cops were there was for a prostitution sting — and we wouldn’t have to endure a big, lousy, tragic conclusion to the case:

A Queens judge on Friday acquitted three detectives charged in the shooting of Sean Bell, who died on his wedding day in a hail of 50 police bullets. He said that prosecutors had failed to prove their case and that wounded friends of the slain man had given testimony that he did not believe.

. . .

The detectives, all but obscured behind a human wall of courthouse officers, finally seemed to exhale deeply, even crumple, with relief. Detective Oliver — who reloaded his gun to fire a total of 31 shots and helped catapult the shooting from tragic mistake to a symbol, for many, of police abuse of force and poor training — closed his eyes and cried.

Except for a few scuffles outside the Queens Criminal Court building and shouted displays of disbelief and outrage, the day passed peacefully amid calls for calm delivered by the mayor, the police commissioner and other officials.

One more example this year makes it a trend, and we can pitch it to the editors of the Magazine . . .

Coordinate Message!

As Rev. Sharpton gets geared up for a verdict in the Sean Bell case it occurs to me that it might not be the best time to remind people about the WWII-themed Operation Torch program, what with its submachine guns and all:

NYPD cops armed with rifles, submachine guns, body armor and bomb-sniffing dogs will start patrolling the city’s subways on Thursday — a first for mass transit in the United States.

Teams of six officers and a dog will patrol subway platforms and trains in 12-hour shifts.

The TORCH teams are being paid for by $151 million from the feds announced in February.

Similarly equipped NYPD units, known as Hercules teams, have patrolled Wall Street and other aboveground icons as part of the NYPD response to the World Trade Center attacks.

“The TORCH teams are Hercules teams with a MetroCard,” a police source said.

Great Pizza . . . And Now Throwing Stars, Too

The elusive Ninja Burglar turns out to be up to three Albanians:

The NYPD has quietly closed the book on Staten Island’s so-called Ninja Burglar case, after authorities started deportation proceedings against at least one Albanian man they believe to be connected to the string of break-ins, police sources told the Advance.

About a week and a half ago, the police department dismantled the investigative team hunting for the serial burglar, those sources said.

“The investigation is dormant, with no new leads,” Paul Browne, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner for public information, confirmed to the Advance yesterday afternoon. “Investigators believe that an individual suspected [but with insufficient evidence to make an arrest] of being the burglar is among three Albanian nationals currently facing deportation because of their illegal status in the United States.”

Browne did not name the three Albanian nationals.

The Advance broke the story on its Web site, silive.com, yesterday afternoon.

Police had linked the “Ninja Burglar” — who received the nickname from the media after a Dongan Hills man reported fighting off a nunchuk-wielding intruder in a ninja costume last September — to 19 separate break-ins, mainly in the Todt Hill and Grymes Hill neighborhoods, between May 2007 and January of this year.

Multiple law-enforcement sources close to the investigation told the Advance that investigators were first clued into a possible Albanian connection to the burglary pattern last fall, when they learned that several Albanian men from the same area in neighboring Macedonia had formed a loosely knit crew to commit burglaries.

In some instances, they would wait for the other members of their Albanian community to go out to cultural events, then strike their vacant homes, the sources said.

. . .

. . . [S]ources said, two other members of the group were believed responsible for several of the break-ins in the Ninja Burglar case, but were never charged.

With their forensic and investigative leads exhausted, police contacted federal immigration officials, who started deportation proceedings against several members of the group last month, according to police sources.

I’m Going To Show You A Problem — You Try Waiting For An Outerborough Bus Past Midnight

There is no better argument for congestion pricing, and the massive increase in transit revenue that will surely result, than a law-abiding man made crazy from irregular B13 service:

A Sing Sing prison guard has been busted for allegedly using his state-issued revolver to carjack three strangers in Brooklyn, The Post has learned.

Brian Duran, 46, was arrested Sunday at 12:20 a.m. after one victim flagged down a patrol car.

Duran allegedly smashed in the rear window of a Ford Taurus parked at 100 Bushwick Ave. in Williamsburg.

Sources said the three friends were waiting for a fourth when Duran, who had been standing at a bus stop, suddenly came over.

“What’s your f- – -ing problem?” driver Anthony Peña, 23, quoted him as yelling.

“Nobody has a problem. Just go about your business,” he was told.

To which Duran allegedly countered, “I’m going to show you a problem!” — as he pulled his state-issued Smith & Wesson and struck the window so hard that he dropped the gun inside the car.

Said Peña: “I got out and hid on the side and said, ‘What are you, crazy?’ ”

. . .

Duran, suspended without pay, was arraigned Sunday on charges of grand and petty larceny, menacing, criminal mischief, criminal possession of stolen property, and unauthorized use of a vehicle.

His estranged wife, who declined to give her name, was at a loss to explain his actions.

“There has to be more of this story. He’s never done anything like this,” she said. “I just can’t believe it. This has to be an [early] April Fool’s joke.”