The owner of a trendy Harlem cafe that was used as a hangout by NYPD bosses at the center of a sweeping corruption probe, says he was not the mastermind of a $12 million Ponzi scheme, but rather a victim of “usurious” money lenders.

Hamlet Peralta, known for palling around with many of the NYPD cops now under investigation “vehemently denies the charges,” his lawyer Cesar de Castro said in court papers filed Tuesday, offering the first glimpse of the failed restaurateur’s potential defense strategy.

“We believe the evidence will show that despite the promised returns on some investor related documentation, Mr. Peralta was in fact victimized by a usurious scheme requiring exorbitant cash interest payments that if he failed to pay had promised consequences,” de Castro told Manhattan federal judge Katherine Forrest in a bid to lower his client’s bail.

De Castro did not identify the lender, but prosecutors have said Peralta had dealings with organized crime as well as allegedly corrupt NYPD cops.

In April, Assistant US Attorney Russell Capone said that FBI agent Joseph Downs approached Peralta in the middle of a $19,000 payment to a member of an unidentified organized crime family. The transaction was learned to be part of Peralta’s alleged scheme.

Peralta, 36, has been behind bars since his arrest in April over a $12 million scheme to solicit money for a fictitious wholesale liquor business. He has been in lockup, however, due more to fears that his high-powered NYPD friends could help him flee the country and escape the charges.

The cops may have good reason to want Peralta vanished. His now-shuttered Hudson River Café was a popular Harlem hangout for many of the NYPD bosses being investigated by the FBI probe over gifts received in exchange for official favors.

And the feds have collected months of wiretaps and 30,000 emails in their probe of the alleged Ponzi scheme.

The failed restaurateur was so close with the cops he traveled to the Dominican Republic with “a very, very high-ranking officer for the NYPD” whom The Post has identified as former Chief of Department Philip Banks III.

Deputy Chief David Colon, another target of the probe, introduced Peralta to victims of the alleged Ponzi scheme, sources have said.

De Castro argued that Peralta’s alleged crimes do not match his bond, set at $5 million to be secured by $1 million in cash or property. He argued that Peralta’s bond should be lowered to $500,000 to be secured by his sister’s Riverdale property.

“And we believe that many of the government investor witnesses may not have been completely forthcoming with the government regarding their investments,” de Castro said.

The government is expected to counter Wednesday with paperwork requesting “a permanent order of detention.”

Judge Forrest ordered the two sides to appear before her on Thursday.