She’s short — so she got a shorter jail sentence.

Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff’s diminutive, longtime former secretary dodged life in prison when a Manhattan federal judge sentenced her to a mere six years in the slammer – in part because she’s a mere 4-feet, 6-inches tall.

Not only that, Judge Laura Taylor Swain – who is roughly 5 feet, 3 inches herself – gave Annette Bongiorno, 66, less jail time than what even her own lawyer asked for.

“Her age and her unusually small stature might also put her in a vulnerable position in a prison facility,” Swain said.

Still, “Ms. Bongiorno chose to put her life, and put the lives of others, in the wrong hands,” Swain acknowledged. “She did so voluntarily, and in choosing to believe Madoff’s explanations instead of acknowledging the plain truth of her own actions and those of her co-workers, she committed despicable crimes.”

Bongiorno – who received a court order from the same judge to sit in a smaller-sized chair during trial because regular chairs make her back hurt — was facing up to life in prison after being convicted on securities fraud and tax-evasion charges for helping her ex-boss pull off his epic, $17.5 billion fraud and profiting handsomely from it.

Her lawyer, Roland Riopelle, had asked Swain to sentence his client to no more than eight to 10 years in prison. Prosecutors had asked Swain to throw the book at Bongiorno, saying she should get a harsher sentence than the 20-year prison term recommended by the US Probation Office.

The judge also ordered the convict to forfeit more than $155 billion in restitution to the government, a symbolic amount that essentially ensures Bongiorno will be broke for life. Bongiorno must also spend a year of supervised release after her prison sentence is over.

Swain said she believed Bongiorno was unaware of the Ponzi scheme but “willfully blinded” herself to the fact that she was assisting a crook.

Bongiorno — who the feds say backdated phony trades, deceived auditors and federal regulators and committed other crimes — claimed at trial that she was a naïve high school graduate who was duped by a slick-talking Wall Street “rock star” immediately after she began working for him nearly five decades ago.

Riopelle even showed jurors a 1988 photo under the title “Bernie Madoff as Annette saw him” that captured the Ponzi king sitting regally atop a horse with wind blowing through his tousled hair.

A teary-eyed Bongiorno apologized to Madoff’s victims, adding she was duped by him like they were.

She said her biggest mistake in life was to trust her ex-boss.

“He was my teacher and my superior,” Bongiorno told the judge. “I did what I was told. I did not know what was going on. He never confided in me. He never said I was breaking the law.”

“Madoff never asked my permission to use me the way he did,” Bongiorno added. “He knew I was not capable of figuring out his scheme on my own. He took advantage of that.

“I will be haunted by my shame for the rest of my life. I have lost so much.”

Bongiorno was found guilty in March by a federal jury in Manhattan, along with four other former Madoff cronies. Their five-month, white-collar trial was one of the longest in New York’s history.

Swain on Monday sentenced former Madoff operations chief Daniel Bonventre, 67, to 10 years in prison for his role in the epic fraud.

Computer programmer Jerome O’Hara, 51, was sentenced Tuesday to 2 ½ years behind bars.

Computer programmer George Perez, 48, will be sentenced Wednesday, and former Madoff account manager Joann Crupi, 53, is being sentenced Dec. 15.

Perez and O’Hara are alleged to have developed computer programs to help Madoff manufacture false books and other records.

The 11-person jury unanimously voted “guilty” on each of the 31 separate charges, some of which only applied to certain defendants. During the trial, they heard testimony from more than 40 witnesses and reviewed roughly 1,600 government exhibits.

Madoff is serving a 150-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to the scheme in 2009 and has claimed he acted alone. The sentencings are taking place nearly six years to the day that Madoff surrendered to authorities on Dec. 11, 2008.

Eight other Madoff ex-staffers have pleaded guilty to assisting their crooked ex-boss, including former finance chief Frank DiPascali, who was the centerpiece of the prosecution’s case.

Former Madoff clients claim they lost more than $17 billion through the Ponzi scheme. A court-appointed trustee has recovered much of the money by forcing those customers who received big payouts from Madoff to return the funds.

After the fraud was revealed in December 2008, Madoff admitted that the nearly $68 billion he claimed then existed in his company accounts was actually only a few hundred million dollars.