The wealthy Manhattan woman whose 2018 plunge down a trash chute was ruled a fatal accident by cops may have been strangled to death, according to bombshell new findings from New York City’s former chief medical examiner.

Dr. Michael Baden believes the 48-year-old mother “may have died because of homicidal ligature strangulation and was then placed in the garbage chute,” according to a letter the famed forensic pathologist wrote to the family.

Nicholas Prychodko, Lara’s father, said he sought Baden’s help after the Manhattan DA’s Office concluded their investigation into Lara’s mysterious death “with no resolution” two months after her body was found July 10, 2018, at the bottom of the trash chute connecting to the 27th floor of her Union Square building. The city’s Chief Medical Examiner called the cause of death “undetermined” and said it did not involve “foul play.”

But Nicholas Prychodko, who temporarily moved to New York from his home in Toronto to press the probe into his daughter’s death, has long maintained Lara was murdered.

Baden reviewed autopsy notes, X-rays, lab tests and crime scene photos, according to his letter, which The Post viewed.

According to Baden’s July 15, 2019, report, strangulation “may also explain why there was little bleeding from the lacerated viscera and torn blood vessels noted at autopsy.” Viscera are the body’s internal organs. He was also concerned about a crime scene photo that showed that the victim was topless.

“One of the first things he said was that her blouse was off,” said Nicholas Prychodko. “He felt that was unusual and a potential indication of a struggle before she died.”

Lara Prychodko was found dead in the basement garbage room at the luxury Zeckendorf Towers less than a month after she celebrated her birthday in Paris with family and friends. Police did not suspect foul play, and initially said Lara appeared drunk on surveillance footage about 30 minutes before her body was found by a building maintenance worker at 4:40 p.m. “crushed from multiple angles.”

But there was no footage of her entering the chute on the 27th floor, said her father. “There is no video because there is no video camera in the hallway,” he told The Post.

The only video footage cited in the city Office of the Chief Medical Examiner report, reviewed by The Post, showed Lara entering her building at 4:10 p.m. and taking the elevator to her floor.  There is no reference to her appearing drunk. A neighbor on the 27th floor told police that she returned to her own apartment at 4:20 p.m. and saw nothing amiss in the hallway. But when she came out of her apartment 10 minutes later after hearing loud noises, she told police that she saw a purse sitting in the hallway outside the “trash compactor entrance.” Police said the purse belonged to Prychodko.

“After completing a thorough investigation which included interviewing multiple individuals and viewing video, there is no criminality suspected at this time, and it is believed to be an accident,” NYPD Lt. John Grimpel said at the time.

Before her death, Prychodko was enmeshed in a high-stakes divorce from her husband David Schlachet, who owned a struggling Manhattan construction company which owed more than $3.4 million to creditors and had assets of only $550,844, according to documents filed in federal court in 2016 when his company Taocon Inc. declared bankruptcy.

The couple were fighting over two sprawling homes in Southampton, an apartment in Chelsea, a penthouse in Williamsburg and a loft in Toronto, among other assets. The marital holdings were valued “in the millions of dollars,” said Prychodko’s attorney Eric Seiff. “They had a substantial amount of jointly held real estate,” he said, describing the divorce negotiations as “difficult.”

But the financial talks had begun to turn in her favor in the days before her death, Seiff told The Post last week.

“I was utterly shocked when I heard about her death,” he said. “I just know her death was not an accident.”

Schlachet immediately took control of the properties after Lara’s death, selling the Toronto condo for nearly $700,000, Nicholas Prychodko told The Post. A Southampton home that belonged to the couple was recently listed for rent at $75,000 per month.

Prychodko had lost custody of her 12-year-old son, and had been required to undergo drug and alcohol testing as part of the mediation with her estranged husband.

The NYPD has never named Schlachet a suspect in his wife’s death. When reached for comment, he told The Post that his divorce “like so many, was a painful and sad experience to go through with someone I had loved so deeply.”

He refused to comment on Baden’s findings, and said that he is still helping his son, now 14, deal with the loss of his mother. “It is a pain that we are both still learning to cope with and which will both carry with us forever.”

Last summer, Nicholas Prychodko submitted Baden’s findings — which the pathologist provided pro bono — to the city’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, which agreed to review them.

Even the Canadian Consulate in New York tried to convince the OCME to reopen the investigation based on Baden’s “divergent findings.”

But weeks later, Prychodko received a letter from Leslie Kamelhar, the OCME’s legal counsel, repeating that authorities “have found no signs of foul play in your daughter’s death” and refusing to open a new investigation.

“I have consequently informed the OCME, I no longer have any faith in their professional integrity, nor do I any longer accept the validity of their autopsy report and its conclusions,” Prychodko said bitterly.

The ME’s Office told The Post Friday: “As our counsel stated, a complete investigation was done in this case, and there is no further information from investigators or others that would prompt reopening it. We stand by our determination.”

Nicholas Prychodko said he met with a representative of the Manhattan DA’s Office in October and was told they would reopen the case if “someone with additional information about Lara’s death” were to step forward.

Casey Murphy, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan DA, declined comment Friday to The Post on Baden’s new findings. “We do not comment on meetings between prosecutors and victims or witnesses,” she said.

Frustrated by the authorities’ inaction, Prychodko is poised to hire a private investigator to try to uncover new evidence, he said.

Baden, who had been hired by the family of Jeffrey Epstein to preside at the pedophile’s autopsy last year, controversially concluded that injuries to Epstein’s neck show that the city ME’s autopsy’s “findings are more indicative of homicide” than the suicide determination. Baden noted two fractures on either side of Epstein’s larynx and one on the hyoid bone above his Adam’s apple that was not consistent with suicide. Epstein was found hanging in his cell at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan last August.

Prychodko’s manner of death was one of just 3% of cases to be ruled “undetermined” by the city medical examiner in 2018.

The NYPD reiterated Friday it “determined” there was no criminal activity surrounding Prychodko’s death.