A 13-year-old drug mule busted last year at Kennedy Airport with 87 heroin packets in his belly was sentenced yesterday to spend at least a year at a Georgia boys' ranch.

Prince Nnaedozie Umegbolu smiled as he was released to his mother, who lives in Atlanta, after Queens Family Court Judge Fran Lebow wished him good luck.

"I feel great. I'm happy," said the boy's mother, Alissa Walden, as she hugged her son.

Prince declined to comment to reporters, but told his mother, "We did it!"

Lebow warned the youngster that if he violates his probation, he will be brought back to New York and placed in a juvenile lockdown facility.

The judge agreed to place the boy at the 220-acre boys ranch outside Atlanta so he could be close to his family. He will be schooled at the ranch, and will undergo psychological counseling.

He also will be able to visit his mother's home every two weeks.

"It was an act of courage by the judge," Prince's lawyer, Donald Keenen, said after the sentencing. "The easiest thing to do would have been to give him straight time [at a New York juvenile facility]."

In December, Lebow found the boy guilty of heroin smuggling when he arrived in New York in April on a flight from Nigeria, where he had been living with his grandparents. He told cops that drug dealers promised him $1,900 to smuggle the drugs into the country.