Beleaguered Gov. Paterson, deflecting rumors of a sex scandal about to be made public, appeared on CNN’s “Larry King Live” last night to defend his honor and traced his woes to shamed predecessor Eliot Spitzer.

“I think this is a carryover from that situation,” Paterson said. “I think that’s actually victimized me.”

The governor noted his ascendance to the state’s executive office came about “in a rather shocking way a couple of years ago,” after Spitzer’s resignation in 2008 following a sex scandal.

“And I think people have still a sort of sensitivity to that to the point that people would tend to believe anything they hear these days. And that opens the door for these kinds of scurrilous rumors . . .”