The former Harlem restaurant owner known for palling around with NYPD cops now under investigation in a widening corruption probe is itching to get out of jail.

Hamlet Peralta, owner of the now-shuttered Hudson River Cafe, will file paperwork Tuesday arguing that he should be released on a lower bail — a request that could be granted as soon as this week, The Post has learned.

Peralta, 36, has been in federal lockup since his April arrest over an alleged $12 million Ponzi scheme. He’s been kept behind bars, however, due less to his crimes than to fears that his high-powered NYPD friends could help him flee the country and escape the charges.

Peralta has “close connections to people in law enforcement, including people who can fix things for him,” Assistant US Attorney Russell Capone argued at the time.

The cops may have good reason to want Peralta vanished. His Hudson River Café was a popular Harlem hangout for NYPD bosses now at the center of a massive FBI probe over gifts received in exchange for official favors.

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.

Peralta’s lawyer, Cesar de Castro, is expected to argue in paperwork Tuesday that the allegations against Peralta — that he took $12 million for a fictitious liquor wholesale business — warrant a lower bail package.

Peralta is currently being held on $5 million bond to be secured by $1 million in assets, which his family has struggled to produce.

“Despite press reports, there is nothing in the indictment related to corruption charges,” de Castro told The Post. On the fraud charges de Castro said Peralta “never intended to defraud anyone.”

On Friday, prosecutor Capone told Manhattan federal Judge Katherine Forrest that the government will counter de Castro’s pleading with request for “a permanent order of detention.”

Judge Forrest ordered the two sides to appear before her next Thursday to debate the issue.