The former owner of a Bronx blood lab was sentenced to 18 months in the slammer yesterday for scamming nearly $200,000 from Medicare more than a decade ago.

Zafar Chaudhry, 49, was charged in 2000 with submitting phony bills for pricey genetic-defect tests, but he fled to Pakistan after the FBI began probing his blood-money fraud.

Chaudhry was finally busted when he returned to the US in June, and he later pleaded guilty to conspiracy and false-statement charges in Manhattan federal court.