The former chief crane inspector for the Department of Buildings apologized this morning as he was sent to prison for two years for a bargain-basement bribe scheme that put under-qualified people behind the controls of 200-foot-high “cherry picker” cranes.

“I’d like to apologize to the city in general for letting them down,” he began.

“Everyone wants to be a hero in front of his children,” Delayo, 61, of the Bronx, added. “Unfortunately, that’s not me.”

Prosecutors were only able to prove he took $10,000 over the course of seven years to pass cranes through inspection and sell operating licenses to a handful of workers at a Long Island crane company, Nu-Way Crane Service.

In at least one case, Delayo signed off on an operating license to a crane operator who had never even taken his drivers exam.

The bribe scheme came to light in 2008, through a probe by the Manhattan DA’s office and the city Department of Investigation into a spate of construction accidents, including two fatal collapses of larger “tower” cranes.