Joseph Brooks should be hanged for writing that song, so $3M bail seems pretty cheap in comparison.

from www.nypost.com – Creepy “You Light Up My Life” tunesmith Joseph Brooks has one week to come up with $3 million bail, a judge told him this morning, citing the “compelling” grand jury testimony given against him by some of his 13 alleged sex attack victims.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon hiked the bail despite Brooks arguments that he’s just a poor, profligate has-been — a “Johnny One Note” who has squandered the fortune he made on a single ’70s hit, in the words of his own lawyer.

“Over the years, he has, in my view, squandered an enormous amount,” including on failed theatrical productions, said defendant Jeffrey Hoffman.

Meanwhile, his income has shrunk, the lawyer said.

“I don’t want to say Johnny One Note,” he added — saying it anyway. “But he had one success that made a lot of money” and hasn’t been duplicated, Hoffman said.

Assistant DA Maxine Rosenthal countered that Brooks has been faking both poverty and his illness — continuing to spend tens of thousands of dollars a month out of his hidden fortune and exaggerating the effects of April, 2008 stroke.

Brooks has been photographed walking without the cane that he leans on so dramatically in the courtroom, Rosenthal said. And people who see him during non-court days say they didn’t even know he’d been sick, she said.

“People who saw him coming in and out of his building didn’t even realize he’d had a stroke,” Rosenthal said.

Brooks’ stroke didn’t prevent him from carrying on with his 21-year-old now ex-fiance, with whom he traveled to Mexico and Italy last year, Rosenthal said.

And his supposed poverty didn’t prevent him from lavishing a $1 million cash gift on her last year as well, she said — money that was recently the subject of a civil suit in which Brooks unsuccessfully sued the woman — Joaly Gomez — to get it back, the prosecutor noted.

“This defendant has been living the high life all these years, while these victims have continued to struggle,” she said.

Brooks has been out on $250,000 bail. He is facing a possible life sentence on charges of 13 casting-couch sex attacks, including rapes, on young starlets he’d allegedly bring to his apartment, show his Oscar to, and drug.

He must return to court on Jan. 29 to either post the $3 million bail or surrender.