Goodfellas needed a bad cop.
Former Nassau County officer Hector Rosary “sold the badge” – which later helped his underworld peers avoid the law “multiple times,” federal prosecutors said Monday.
US lawyer Aide Sean Sherman told the federal ju judge during discussions on the deadline at Rosary's trial that the dirty police officer “lied to hide it” after stealing $1,500 a month from the Bonanno crime family.
“He lied to hide information about illegal gambling and organized crime,” Sherman said.
“He lied to protect the Bonanno crime family. He lied to protect himself.”
And because he was deeply rooted with the mafia that had fake police attacks at his rival gambling nest on Long Island, Bonannos didn't even consider him a police officer, Sherman said.
“Bonannos knew the defendant. They trusted him,” Sherman said.
The 51-year-old Rosario is accused of obstructing the Great Ju Court's investigation by lying to the FBI as he allegedly conspired to target rival Genovese and Gambino Mafios during a feud that erupted after a family-wide interest-sharing scheme went south.
Bonannos and Genoveses had originally agreed to split the take from Gran Café, federal prosecutors said.
However, the unstable peace eventually collapses, and Rosario is told by Bonannos that he “selled himself,” and then commits a fake police attack on rival gangster Mini Casino, blackmailing them and closing the store.
On the first day of the trial, prosecutors introduced the ju judges to a laundry list of suspected gangs and mapped the constellations of illegal gambling operations.
“He chose criminal families over the public whom he sworn to protect,” Anna Karamigios, a US lawyer for the Eastern District, told the ju judge.
Bonannos is said to have added the rosary to the family's salary and told him to hit a certain gambling nest around 2013.
On Monday, Rosary's lawyer, Kestine Thierre, in her own closing discussion, allegedly the government failed to prove their case because it focused on the mob and not on Rosary's suspected behaviour.
“We are asking you not to shake up by the mafia's inflammatory evidence,” Thierre said.
“We cannot convict our clients of the words of three convicted members of the mafia who had previously lied.
She also said the Fed has not established a paper trail for payments back to the rosary.
“There is no evidence of payments to collect, and there are no texts or recorded phone calls or meetings or photographs of cash exchange hands,” she said.
“In the end, there is no reliable evidence of Mr. Rosario following one of the criminal acts on behalf of his criminal family.”
The judges will begin deliberations on Tuesday.
