The NYPD dragged its feet in making changes to its embattled Special Victims Division in the wake of a highly critical report released by the city’s main government watchdog agency two years ago, women’s advocates and pols said at a press conference on the steps of City Hall Tuesday.

“The mayor of this city owes the women of this city an apology,” said Sonia Ossorio, president of the National Organization for Women — New York. “Substandard police responses to sex crimes has happened on his watch.”

The press conference was held after a bombshell New York Times report Monday detailed how a suspect who allegedly raped an NYU student in her apartment was released because of substandard police work before attacking three additional women.

“The student reported the assault immediately and fully cooperated with the NYPD, but she and her family allege that the SVD detective assigned to the case openly expressed doubt of her story, and talked her out of moving forward,” according to a news release from City Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal’s office.

The NYPD then shut down the case despite the fact that cops retrieved fingerprint evidence from the crime scene that matched a felon who was already in jail for a series of burglaries, according to the release.

“After receiving a lenient plea deal, the assailant was out again within six months and subsequently attacked three more women, the third of whom he strangled unconscious before he sexually assaulted her,” the release states.

The 165-page 2018 Department of Investigation Report called for major overhauls at the NYPD’s sex victim unit, citing understaffing, a lack of officers with high-level investigative experience, poor training and a tendency to treat stranger rape more seriously than other rapes.

Rosenthal said the NYPD hadn’t fixed several problems detailed in the report.

“I mean the DOI report called for a doubling of the number of detectives,” she said. “That has not happened. The DOI report called for massive regular training, trauma informed training. That has not universally happened.”

Jane Manning, of the advocacy group Women’s Justice Now, called on Police Commissioner Dermot Shea to make changes immediately.

“Commissioner Shea could fix a lot of this today,” Manning said. “He could double the Special Victims division. He could move some of his best detectives into the division.”

She noted that the NYPD has improved the facilities where SVD operates. The DOI report cited shoddy conditions at some of the facilities where victims were interviewed.

“But the other thing he has done is to retaliate against whistle-blowers and silence those who cooperated with the DOI investigation,” she said.

When the DOI did its investigation, one of the detectives it subpoenaed was SVD Deputy Chief Michael Osgood.

“Deputy Chief Osgood followed his sworn obligation, and he cooperated with the DOI report and provided accurate information to the DOI investigators,” Manning said, “and in retaliation for that cooperation he was removed as Division Chief, even though he had the best reputation among advocates, prosecutors and victims that any chief has ever had in the history of that division.”

But the NYPD denied dragging its feet and said changes were underway.

“Over the last nearly two years, there have been significant reforms made to Special Victims,” a statement from spokeswoman Sophia Mason said.

“This includes leadership changes, enhanced staffing with dozens of new investigators, improved facilities, new specialized units and policy changes. SVD is victim centered and even when a victim chooses not to participate in a case, investigators continue to pursue every possible lead to bring justice. In addition, every SVD investigator is trained in how to interview in an empathy-based and trauma-informed manner. The NYPD knows that survivors deserve the very best police work and personal assistance we can possibly provide and urges victims to come forward and report so that the NYPD can do everything possible to investigate it, no matter when it occurred or who it is against.”