Shady antique shop staffers ‘tricked tourist into $1M sale’

It's the "Antiques Road Show"-turned-horror flick.

Shady staffers at a Manhattan collectibles emporium tricked an elderly Ohio tourist into forking over more than a $1 million for miniature statues worth a fraction that, a new Manhattan federal lawsuit alleges.

Retiree Priscilla Janney-Pace, 68, of Yellow Springs was visiting New York City in January 2012 when she noticed some figurines in the window of Metropolitan Fine Arts & Antiques on West 57th Street and went inside to ask about them, states the suit, which was filed Friday.

The store's president and CEO, Samuel Morano, personally tended to Pace, telling her the statues were Japanese figurines known as Netsukes that were produced in the 17th century, the documents say.

Convinced that she was purchasing highly coveted antiques, Janney-Price bought several figurines for tens of thousands of dollars — and returned in February to snap up a few more, according to the lawsuit.

Sensing they had a live one with deep pockets, store staffers then began inundating Janney-Price with e-mail and telephone sales pitches in an attempt to sell her additional items, according to court papers.

Store representatives laid it on thick, telling the retiree that business was suffering and that they could really use her patronage, the suit claims.

They even send her boxes of chocolates and traveled to her winter home in Florida to make sales pitches in person, court papers state.

In March, staffer Irving Morano told Janney-Price that he was selling carvings made from woolly-mammoth tusks, the suit alleges.

"I hate to impose on you, but I can really use some business and am willing to make huge sacrifices," store manager David Cohen told her, according to court papers.

It's unclear whether Janney-Pace ever bought those carvings.

But her lawyer, Paul Cossu, told The Post on Friday: "The defendants engaged in a series of egregiously fraudulent sales to an elderly woman, in which the defendants lied about the origin, age, quality, and value of what they claimed to be antique ivory and jade drawings.''

By the time Janney-Price finally put her credit card down, she had been relieved of more than $1 million for what she assumed were museum-quality sculptures.

That was most of her retirement money, Cossu said.

Janney-Price's daughter eventually caught wind of her mom's expenditures and took the items to an appraiser who gave her the bad news — the items were all Chinese reproductions and worth about $100,000 total, the suit states.

Cossu said the store slips into crafty paperwork that its sales refunds are limited.

Janney-Price is seeking more than $1 million in compensatory damages, Cossu said.

The gallery declined comment to The Post on Friday.

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