A Manhattan jury Friday convicted a Florida ex-con of beating and fatally stabbing a young Connecticut man after a drug-fueled party in a posh Manhattan apartment — as the packed gallery erupted in cheers and sobs.

James Rackover, 27, was found guilty of the barbaric slaying of Joseph Comunale, 26, and of cleaning up the crime scene.

After a two week trial in Manhattan Supreme Court, it took just under five hours for the jury, many with tears in their eyes, to seal his fate.

Rackover, the alleged lover and adopted son of celebrity jeweler Jeffrey Rackover, sat stone-faced as the jury forewoman read the verdict.

The shattered parents of Comunale exploded with emotion and embraced their family and friends, who have been courtroom fixtures since the trial began.

A detective on the case, who was sitting in the front row of the gallery, wiped a tear from his cheek.

Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr.said in a statement that Comunale “was murdered in cold blood in a crime of unconscionable violence.”

Prosecutors say that Rackover and his co-defendant Larry Dilione, 30, who will be tried separately, slaughtered the Hofstra grad Nov. 13, 2016, after an argument that was likely over cocaine.

A third defendant, Max Gemma, who was present during the murder but didn’t participate, is charged with helping cover up the crime.

“I can’t wait to get these other two sons of a bitches to go down just like this a—hole,” said the grieving father, Pat Comunale, flanked by his tearful wife and daughter outside the courtroom.

“My son was a hockey player. This was only the first period. We got a shutout coming right now,” he said, referring the upcoming trials of the other two defendants. “These guys don’t deserve to be on the streets ever again.”

Rackover and Dilione, who had just met Comunale that morning, viciously beat him until he was unconscious in the living room of Rackover’s luxury Grand Sutton apartment.

They dragged him, still breathing, to the apartment’s bathtub and stabbed him 15 times, Assistant DA Antoinette Carter argued at trial.

She said the young man came to and desperately struggled to dodge the blade.

“He stood no chance between the two of them,” Carter said.

Once Comunale had taken his final breath, the crazed pals tried to saw off his arm with a bread knife but couldn’t cut through the bone.

After bleaching the crime scene and ditching bags of blood-soaked evidence in the building’s trash room, the two men callously chowed down on a takeout order of burgers and fries. Comunale’s lifeless body was still in the tub.

Once night fell, they tossed the mutilated corpse out the apartment’s 4th-floor window, stuffed it in the trunk of Rackover’s Mercedes and dumped it in a shallow grave behind a florist shop in Oceanport, NJ.

Before burying the body, they doused it in gasoline and lit it on fire.

The son of Fox5 “Good Day New York” host Rosanna Scotto, was a key prosecution witness. Louis Ruggiero testified that his ex-pal, Rackover, told him the day after the murder, “I slit his throat and stabbed him.”

Defense lawyers Maurice Sercarz and Robert Caliendo fingered Dilione as the killer and said Rackover was only guilty of helping cover up the crime.

Caliendo said they were disappointed in the jury’s decision: “James was stoic – but a guilty verdict is a lot to bear – as it would be for anyone. This was a hard fought case and we’ll evaluate our options going forward.”

Rackover faces up to 25 years in prison on the top count of second-degree murder when he’s sentenced Dec. 5.