A Harlem man exonerated last month after serving 14 years in prison for a rape he didn’t commit dissolved into tears yesterday as he recounted his ordeal and the impact on his broken mom.

“I needed this for my mother,” Johnnie O’Neal, now 54, told reporters. “I didn’t want her to be deceased and to think her son was a rapist. She had to wear the same stigma I wore.”

O’Neal was convicted of raping a woman at knifepoint on an Upper West Side rooftop in 1984, although he and five relatives said he had been at home watching TV.

The Manhattan DA offered O’Neal a two-year plea deal if he copped to a lesser charge. He refused.

O’Neal was convicted of first-degree rape at trial despite glaring inconsistencies in the victim’s testimony.

Speaking at a press conference yesterday, O’Neal recalled his time behind bars.

“Some nights, I’d just cry every day,” he said. “But I knew I was innocent from the very first day.”

The Legal Aid Society and the DA began re-examining the case five years ago and found that a now-deceased drug addict, Gregory Smith, likely committed the rape and two others.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Marcy L. Kahn overturned the conviction on July 15.

“After conducting an exhaustive re-investigation of this case, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Program consented to vacating the conviction against Mr. O’Neal,” DA rep Joan Vollero said in a statement.