The Goodfellas needed a bad cop.
Ex-Nassau County cop Hector Rosario “sold his badge” to the mob — then helped his underworld cronies evade the law “time and time again,” federal prosecutors said Monday.
Assistant US Attorney Sean Sherman told a federal jury during closing arguments at Rosario’s trial that the allegedly dirty cop took $1,500 per month from the Bonanno crime family, then “lied to cover it up.”
“He lied to hide information about illegal gambling and organized crime,” Sherman said, adding that Rosario was a “cop in name only” and lied to the FBI more than 30 times when the feds interviewed him about his illicit activities in January 2020.
“He lied to protect the Bonanno crime family. He lied to protect himself.”
And he was so deeply entrenched with the Mafia — for whom he staged fake police raids on rival gambling dens throughout Long Island — that the Bonannos didn’t even consider him a cop, Sherman said.
“The Bonannos knew the defendant. They trusted him,” Sherman said, adding the family knew he could be bought and had helped them slip the long arm of the law “time and time again.”
Rosario, 51, has been charged with obstructing a grand jury probe into racketeering and lying to the FBI as he allegedly conspired to target rival Genovese and Gambino mafiosos during a feud that erupted after a profit-sharing scheme between the families went south.
The Bonannos and Genoveses had originally agreed to split the take from the Gran Caffe, an illicit gambling den, federal prosecutors said.
But the shaky peace eventually collapsed, and Rosario allegedly “sold himself” to the Bonannos, then staged fake police raids against rival gangsters’ mini-casinos to intimidate them into closing up shop.
On the trial’s opening day, prosecutors introduced jurors to a laundry list of alleged mobsters and mapped out a constellation of illegal gambling operations — which led to the sweeping 2022 bust that netted Rosario and eight alleged mobsters
“He chose the crime family over the public he swore to protect,” Anna Karamigios, assistant US attorney for the Eastern District, told jurors.
The Bonannos allegedly added Rosario to the family payroll and told him to hit specific gambling dens around 2013.
On Monday, Rosario’s attorney, Kestine Thiele, claimed during her own closing arguments that the government failed to prove their case because they focused on the mob, not Rosario’s alleged actions.
“We are asking you not to be swayed by the inflammatory evidence of the Mafia,” Thiele said, before attacking the credibility of the Mafiosos who testified against Rosario from the stand.
“You cannot convict our client on the word of three convicted members of the mafia who all have lied in the past, who have lied to hundreds of people over the course of their criminal behaviors and in their personal lives.”
She also said the feds hadn’t established a paper trail of payments leading back to Rosario.
“There’s no evidence of payments to be collected, no texts or recorded calls or meetings or photos of cash exchanging hands,” she said.
“Ultimately, there’s no credible corroborating evidence that Mr. Rosario followed through with any of the criminal acts on behalf of the crime family.”
The jury will start deliberating Tuesday.
