The New York Post confronted the SEC staffer who failed to act on a tip that Bernard Madoff was a fraud.

A weeping Meaghan Cheung told the tabloid she did the best she could at her job at the SEC New York office.

“Why are you taking a mid-level staff person and making me responsible for the failure of the American economy?” Cheung cried.

“I worked very hard to make a career, and a reputation, and that has been destroyed,” she said.

Cheung, 37, was the branch chief of the SEC enforcement division in the Big Apple during a SEC probe of Madoff. Harry Markopolos, the would-be Madoff whistleblower, singled her out for her failure to uncover the $50 billion Ponzi scheme. Her probe found no evidence of fraud.

She said the staff in the New York office did “as thorough an investigation” as possible.

Markopolos has said he did not think Cheung had the mathematical acumen needed to comprehend the scheme.

Cheung left the SEC in September to devote more time to her family. She is a graduate of Yale University and Fordham Law School.