The former mayor of the tony Hamptons town of Quogue was sentenced to eight years in federal prison yesterday for bilking clients out of $2.4 million in a “cherry picking” stock-fraud scheme.

George Motz, 66, the president and CEO of Melhado, Flynn & Associates, a brokerage and investment house on Fifth Avenue, resigned as mayor after seven and a half years in October 2009 after he pleaded guilty to the scheme.

Motz was ordered to turn himself in to begin his sentence on June 30.