A career criminal with a lengthy rap sheet, including slugging a 76-year-old man in January, is charged with shooting a tourist for his pricey watch outside a four-star Midtown hotel, police told The Post Wednesday.

Nathaniel Owens, 35, who is also on parole for a 2012 weapons rap, was hit with attempted murder charges in the March 18 attack outside the Fifty Hotel & Suites by Affinia in Midtown, the NYPD said.

He was arraigned Wednesday and ordered held without bail. 

Prosecutors said Owens attacked tourist Pierrick Jamaux, 33, who was visiting from Hong Kong, and shot him multiple times in the legs and groin to get at his $100,000 Richard Mille timepiece.

Jamaux frequently flashed the ritzy watch on social media.

The cryptocurrency expert later told The Post that he had “absolutely no clue who did this” — only that it was “to steal my watch.”

“Someone knew I had the watch and somebody knew I’d be back in the hotel at that time,” he said of the attack on East 50th Street near Third Avenue.

The gunman fled without getting it, however, thanks partly to one of Jamaux’s female friends bravely jumping on the attacker’s back.

Jamaux, a French native, was also with his 26-year-old model wife, Sarah Watts, at the time, later gushing about her support in an Instagram post.

“I would have never made it out of ICU without your love and care,” he wrote of his ongoing recovery at Bellevue.

 “You were here for me and I will be here for you as long as I am. I love you my superwoman ♥,” he wrote.

Owens was later busted for the attack. 

He already had 18 prior arrests since 2012, including for drug possession, assault and criminal possession of a weapon, the sources said.

His previous arrest came on Jan. 23, when he allegedly punched the elderly victim while he was in the middle of teaching a Zoom class.

“He’s a very dangerous person,” that victim, Edgar Sosa-Mieles, told The Post on Wednesday.

Sosa-Mieles said Owens, who lives in the same building, is “a squatter” who brought nothing but headaches for the tenants.

“I told the assistant DA I intended to push this as far as I could because I wanted him out of this building because he was a danger to everyone in the building,” he said. “I thought that my building was the safest place around.

“He found a way to sneak in and brought his illegal lifestyle in,” he said. “He’s in jail now, right? Good. That’s where he belongs.”

Owens was arraigned on felony assault charges Jan. 24 and freed on supervised release at the recommendation of prosecutors, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said.

The charge was reduced to a misdemeanor during a Feb. 28 court appearance, where a judge ruled Owens could be released with no bail conditions. He is due back in court in that case on April 4.

Prosecutors cited that open case, as well as Owens’ criminal record and his history of skipping court dates, when asking Judge Anne Swern to order him held without bail during his arraignment Wednesday. 

Owens has two prior illegal gun convictions, in 2005 in Brooklyn and in 2012 in Queens. He served time in state prison for second-degree criminal possession of a weapon after being caught with a stolen and loaded Ruger .380, but was released on parole in March 2018, law enforcement sources said.

Assistant District Attorney Diana Serebrenik said Owens tried to avoid being caught in the attack on Jamaux by changing his clothes before and after the shooting, which was captured on surveillance video.

A search of his home on Tuesday turned up two bulletproof vests, a protective shield and a police uniform shirt with a real precinct pin on the collar, Serebrenik said.

Owens’ defense attorney, Chris Van Zele of New York County Defender Services, asked for bail to be set at $20,000, questioning how his client came to be identified as the suspect.

Owens faces a minimum of 20 years to life if convicted. His next court date is Friday.