The cowardly thug busted for sucker-punching Jets fan James Mohr outside MetLife Stadium Sunday is a drug-dealing ex-con with a lengthy rap sheet, public records show.

Merle Lee, 35, of Newton, NJ, was charged with aggravated assault for the attack outside the New Jersey Meadowlands stadium after the Jets’ 37-10 win over the Kansas City Chiefs.

The brute allegedly sucker-punched Mohr, 23, after the Queens schoolteacher objected to a woman screaming, “F–k New York!” and, “You all deserved what happened on 9/11!”

The diehard Jets fan told the woman her comments were disrespectful.

A man wearing a Kansas City Chiefs jersey got in his face and the pair had words, and then Lee ran up from behind and delivered the haymaker, witnesses told cops.

Anna Mohr, 28, said her brother never saw the blow coming.

“He said the next thing he recalls is waking up in the hospital,” she said.

Mohr underwent extensive surgery Tuesday to repair a broken jaw, eye socket and cheekbone.

Lee was once sentenced to three years in a New Jersey prison on a drug-dealing charge, and also has convictions for drug-possession, theft, DWI and other offenses, records show.