Burt Pugach, the 81-year-old New Yorker who blinded his girlfriend with acid and later remarried her after spending 14 years in prison, is on the attack again. This time his target is Dan Klores, the award-winning director whose bio-pic about the creepy couple, Crazy Love, thrust them into the national spotlight last year. The demented documentary, which debuted at Sundance in January 2007, went on to collect a series of awards, including the 2008 Independent Spirit Award. Soon after, HBO asked Klores to write and direct a feature film based on the bizarre love story. But when Klores called Pugach to tell him the good news, the disbarred lawyer was less than thrilled. Yesterday he filed a $15 million lawsuit in Queens County Supreme Court against Klores, his attorneys and HBO, claiming they falsely enticed him and his wife Linda into signing over the rights to their story.

Pugach, who still lives with his wife in a cramped Queens apartment, earned $50,000 for the documentary, and he stands to make more if the film is made in to a feature. But apparently it's not enough. Sources say he attempted to squeeze Klores and HBO out of an additional $200,000 to let the movie proceed. "He was calling Dan a dozen times a day," says a pal of the PR kingpin. When Klores resisted, Pugach followed up with the lawsuit.

Pugach's attorney Peter Gordon was in court when contacted by Radar and hadn't responded by post time.

But Pugach's suit is especially surprising in light of his earlier effusive praise for Klores. At the film's star-studded Sundance premiere, he bounded to the stage to hug and kiss the director, and in subsequent interviews hailed Klores as a "genius" who did "an excellent job" on the movie.

For the moment, Klores, who still heads up one of Manhattan's biggest PR firms, is largely staying mum about the suit against him. "To a certain extent this is my own fault," he said when contacted by Radar. "If you sleep with fleas you're gonna get bit." His litigation attorney, Matthew Rosengart, had this to say: "Mr. Pugach is seeking money to which he is clearly not entitled under the plain terms of the contract," adding, "Dan made an award-winning documentary, which the Pugach's loved, and he has every right under his contract with them to make a film for HBO based on the rights he purchased from them." HBO spokesman Jeff Cusson said that neither he nor anyone else at HBO had seen the lawsuit and therefore couldn't comment on it.

But even a $15 million payout may be less punishing than Pugach's second demand. In return for his participation, he is also asking HBO to broadcast his never-before-released feature, Death Over My Shoulder, a 1958 crime drama that Pugach produced with a retired industry investigator named Bob Janoff. The film centers on a detective who hires a hit man to knock him off so his sick son will receive his life insurance. But when the detective has a change of heart, the hit man doesn't. After Pugach blinded his wife for breaking up with him, Janoff was one of the few people to stand by him. He made a memorable cameo in Crazy Love to explain his loyalty. "They say even Hitler had friends, whattya want me to tell you?" he said.