New York City- from www.nypost.com – The obese, hooker-happy president of a Port Authority union who stole $300,000 of his members’ dues to pay for lavish meals, gambling and sexual hijinks, plans to retire — and his conviction will not prevent him from collecting a disability pension, sources said yesterday.

Daniel Hughes, who earned $95,914 annually, pleaded guilty on Wednesday in Brooklyn Federal Court to a stealing the dough over a five-year period beginning in January 2009.

He used the ill-gotten gains to finance a high-on-the-hog lifestyle that included fancy meals, jaunts to Mohegan Sun and escapades with hookers, sources said.

“There’s no question in my mind that this guy will file for a disability pension,” said one investigator familiar with Hughes’ exploit.

“I’d be very surprised if he didn’t. What’s the worst that can happen, he’s rejected,” said the source.

In January, Hughes retired as president of the local Field Supervisors Association and went on sick leave due from the Port Authority due to poor health and weight reduction surgery.

He is likely to be heading to federal prison for 46 to 57 months, but that won’t be a bar to him collecting his pension benefits, if he’s approved.

He wouldn’t get any pension until he turns 55 and those payments would likely total about $17,000 annually, as he only has 15 years of employment with the PA, sources say.

Hughes’ whereabouts were unclear yesterday, but a woman believed to be his wife, emerged briefly from his College Point, Queens, home, to tell reporters, “I’m tired. I just want to rest.”

Another relative, Hughes’ brother-in-law, Rafael Moran, 58, said Hughes wife, “is destroyed by this situation.”

“She is completely innocent. He did this in secret. She doesn’t know what to do,” Moran said.

Meanwhile, George Murtaugh, the president of the PA union that Hughes headed before he stepped down, told The Post how he was shocked and saddened to find out that a colleague he believed was an honest family man was, in fact, a thief.

“This has just been an overwhelming tragedy for us and an embarrassment for our employer, the Port Authority,” Murtaugh said.

“Here is a guy I trusted and I didn’t expect this at all,” he added.

Murtaugh said he stepped in for Hughes in October 2009 when Hughes first went out on sick leave, before anyone had a hint of any looming fiscal improprieties within the union.

“I noticed that Danny was sick. His health was not good by any means,” he said. “The reason I say that is when I saw him, he was sickly and out of breath in a very bad way. He couldn’t breath from a simple walk down a hallway or a small set of steps. He was not in good health.”

In December, a month before Hughes underwent lap band surgery to reduce his weight, it became clear that invoices for legal services were not being paid, Murtaugh recalled.

He and the union’s new treasurer, who assumed that post in the spring of 2009 when a woman predecessor retired, initially thought that an ailing Hughes forgetting to pay the bill, Murtaugh added.

But when the new treasurer went to Hughes’ home and picked up a box containing some financial records, they were both stunned to realize that at least $50,000 was missing from the union’s coffers, he said.

“It was like he got hit by a two-by-four,” he said of the new treasurer’s reaction to news. “It was like he was walking into a mess he didn’t start.”

Murtaugh said he, too, was devastated by the realization.

“That’s when the Nexium started kicking in,” he said, referring to the medication commonly prescribed to ulcer sufferers.lcers.

“Here’s a guy I trusted and I didn’t expect this at all. I was put in a very bad situation that was thrust upon me,” Murtaugh said.

He said he had no choice but to report the financial shenanigans – first to his union’s lawyers and then, reluctantly, to the authorities.”I’m there to protect the union membership. Did I like doing it? No, I didn’t, but I was acting on their behalf,” he said.