A judge Tuesday said she needs to assess a hellish squatter’s right to “liberty’’ before she can boot him from the West Village building where he’s been terrorizing residents for nearly a year — even after he was a no-show at the hearing.

Lawyers for 400 Bleeker St. in the trendy Manhattan neighborhood demanded the judge sign off on a restraining order that would ban alleged crazy-like-a-fox Melvin DeJesus, 66, from the well-heeled building.

“He began his reign of terror in the building with death threats,” said Paul Coppe, a lawyer for site owners the Brodsky Organization, to Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Kathy J King.

“He’s said ‘I have a knife and I’m going to use it,’ ” Coppe said of DeJesus — who has a 30-year-old attempted-murder conviction.

“It’s not an exaggeration to say the building residents are terrified.”

But King said she needs more time to render a decision — after previously delaying the case in early April.

“This is a request that affects someone’s liberty,” she said Tuesday. “So I will have to take this back to chambers.”

Tenants in the building — where a two-bedroom unit recently rented for $6,700 a month — were left fuming.

“If she cares so much about [DeJesus’s] ‘liberty’ to free accommodation, maybe she should house him,” a resident said.

“What more does it take? An actual violent crime?”

“I am angry and feeling a bit helpless,” the resident said.

Coppe had insisted to the judge, “The underlying case is based essentially on nuisance abatement,”

DeJesus “promptly embarked on what can only be described as a reign of terror” when he moved in just months before the previous life-long rent-control tenant died last fall, Coppe recalled for King.

“Mr. DeJesus is a multiple predicate felon,” Coppe said.

The company won a restraining order in February barring him from harassing tenants, and he also faces separate eviction proceedings brought against him by the landlord.

In March, he was arrested for allegedly smashing a neighbor’s Ring doorbell camera.

Tenants say he’s only gotten worse over the months, with many claiming in court papers that his late-night terror have forced them to flee the building in the middle of the night.

Last month, DeJesus showed up to court, where his conduct required a flock of court officers to follow him as he yelled in the court room and court-house hallways, mumbled about dying and was granted an adjournment for two months after he claimed a medical emergency. 

Coppe noted that DeJesus knew to be in court Tuesday, since he requested to move the delay up by a month, and served him papers informing him of the new date.