A former honcho at Investment Technology Group is claiming he was wrongfully fired from a new job at AQR Capital Management when ITG scapegoated him during an SEC investigation into stock market rigging.

And now, Hitesh Mittal is suing, saying he wants ITG to pony up all the money he personally lost — plus punitive damages — during the years he spent clearing his name after the company allegedly painted him as a crooked moneyman.

“ITG ran a coordinated and extensive smear campaign to paint itself as a victim of a rogue ex-employee,” Mittal’s Manhattan Supreme Court suit alleges.

Mittal, according to court docs, was terminated as part of a mass 2011 layoff, before the SEC started investigating the company in 2014.

More than four years after he’d left the company, “the SEC announced that ITG and its affiliate AlterNetSecurities agreed to pay $20.3 million ‘to settle charges that they operated a secret trading desk and misused [its customers’] confidential trading information'” as part of Project Omega, the papers read.

“In the wake of this embarrassing regulatory problem, ITG falsely attempted to shift the blame for its failure to disclose Project Omega onto Mr. Mittal’s shoulders,” the suit says.

“ITG mischaracterized Mr. Mittal as a rogue former employee, falsely stating, among other things, that Mr. Mittal violated ITG’s compliance policies in conjunction with Omega, and falsely stating that ITG had reprimanded Mr. Mittal in December 2010 for his actions in connection with Project Omega.”

Mittal was ultimately cleared by the SEC, the suit says, but is now an “industry pariah” who can’t find a job.

“ITG stole tears from Mr. Mittal and his family, while they worried about the ramifications of ITG’s false charges and the consequences,” the suit says.

A spokesman with ITG declined to comment on the allegations, saying: “We do not comment on pending legal matters.”.