A 12-year-old punk who hurled a shopping cart onto a woman from a fourth-floor East Harlem mall walkway was sentenced yesterday to at least six months in a therapeutic group home.

Raymond Hernandez was ordered held for up to 16 months for the Oct. 30 prank that nearly killed Marion Salmon Hedges, 47, as her 13-year-old son watched in horror.

Manhattan Family Court Judge Susan Larabee noted that Hernandez has been suspended several times from school, once for trying to choke a girl.

She said he has serious anger and mental-health problems he can work hard to try to overcome.

“All of those things do not mean that you’re doomed to keep living like this,” the judge said.

Hernandez and a pal, Jeovanni Rosario, now 13, pleaded guilty to tossing the cart.

Hedges, struck while shopping for Halloween goodies for underprivileged kids, was in a medically induced coma for a time. She’s still undergoing extensive rehabilitation, said Tom Moore, a family lawyer who called yesterday’s sentence a step toward justice.