New York- A magazine editor was charged yesterday with trying to pick up a 13-year-old girl on the Internet for sex, federal authorities said.

Tim McDarrah, an Us Weekly editor and former New York Post reporter, offered to pay $200 for “sex with a YOUNG hottie,” and was nabbed when he showed up at a Manhattan building where he thought the girl lived, authorities said.

McDarrah, 43, who allegedly used his mother’s AOL account to set up the illicit tryst, was charged with using a computer to persuade a minor to engage in sex, officials said.

“He told [the agent posing as the girl] that 17 is the age of consent, but he didn’t plan to wait that long,” an undercover federal agent pretending to be the girl said, according court papers.

The editor first made contact with the agent in July when he answered an ad on the Craig’s list Web site, officials said.

They exchanged messages for weeks in which McDarrah coaxed “the girl” into agreeing to meet for sex, authorities said.

McDarrah was not immediately reachable for comment. An Us spokesman said McDarrah had been suspended without pay.