Things have gotten so bad for Dean Skelos that he was apparently hoping for some help from beyond the grave.
One of the witnesses the former state Senate Majority Leader was planning on calling in his defense case is a dead man, prosecutors complained Wednesday.
Assistant US Attorney Rahul Mukhi complained to Judge Kimba Wood that Skelos' lawyers had submitted a list of 29 possible witnesses to testify on Skelos' behalf next week.
"We don't believe this is a real list," Mukhi told the judge, noting it included former state Sen. Owen Johnson, "who passed away."
Johnson's obit in the Daily News — from last December — reads, "Former state Senator Owen Johnson, who served 40 years in the Senate before stepping down two years ago, has died, Senate GOP leader Dean Skelos announced." Johnson, who repped Babylon, LI, died at age 85 of natural causes.
Skelos' lawyer, Robert Gage, eventually acknowledged he'd made a mistake by including Johnson on the list. He chalked the gaffe up to his own uncertainty about who the feds plan to call in the coming days.
"We don't know who to call yet," Gage said.
Testimony continued a short time later Wednesday, with one of the prosecution's live witnesses, Bjornulf White.
White was Adam Skelos' superviser at AbTech - a storm-water company that hired Adam after what the feds say was inappropriate help from his powerful dad.
Watching some of the action was Judge Valerie Caproni, the judge who presided over the trial of Sheldon Silver, the former state Assembly Speaker who was convicted of corruption charges earlier this week.
She was joined at one point by Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara, who sat next to her. There was no sign that Adam Skelos — who referred to the prosecutor as "f---ing Preet Bharara" on a wiretapped phone conversation that was played in court Tuesday — noticed his nemesis.