NYC INSISTS ON GUILTY PLEA TO RELEASE INNOCENT MAN

It's a bargain made under duress so possibly could be challenged

Joshua Rivera won't be home for Christmas, but he's still expecting to have his happiest New Year in more than a decade. "The first thing I want to do is go to church, get on my knees and thank God," Rivera told The Post during an interview on Rikers Island, where he's awaiting his release after 13 years behind bars for a crime that new witnesses say he did not commit.

"In my mind, it hasn't happened yet," he said of his impending freedom. But that hasn't stopped him from making a lengthy to-do list. Rivera said he wants to ride the subway again. He'd also like to see Yankee Stadium, Ground Zero and Times Square. "I also want to see the Intrepid," he said, unaware the massive aircraft carrier has been hauled from Manhattan's West Side to Bayonne, N.J., for repairs.

Rivera, 36, was sentenced to life in prison in 1995 for murdering Gulf War veteran Leonard Aquino in Woodside, Queens. He is getting out as part of a plea deal after new witnesses surfaced to say he wasn't the shooter. Rivera said he met one of those witnesses at Elmira prison, and "wanted to stab him." He held back when an older inmate convinced him to use the man to his advantage instead.

Although he maintains his innocence, Rivera agreed to plead guilty to manslaughter and be sentenced to time served. "I thought that my freedom was more important than fighting this any longer," Rivera said. "I could have fought and stayed here. But there was no guarantee. "This is a guaranteed door that I am walking out of."

Rivera said a big part of his decision to cop to the lesser charge was his two teenage children - even though the guilty plea removed any chance he had of suing the city and will always be on his record. "You can't put a price on freedom. There's more to life than money," he said. "What's important is that you're there for your children."

He said he harbors no bad feelings toward the gang members that he used to hang with, even though he took the fall for the shooting and they never once visited him. Rivera said he'd like to open a food store in Florida, where his wife Rosa lives with their kids Jose, 16, and Kianna, 13. But before that, he'll take a trip to Astoria Park, where he played and swam as a child. When he gets there, he'll sit in the middle of the big field - and just "meditate."

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