Former New York Police detective convicted of lying to the FBI to protect the Mafia family

New York (AP) – A former police detective was sentenced Wednesday for lying to the FBI to Protect illegal play operations from a mafia family in the suburbs of New York City.

Héctor Rosario, a former Nassau County Police detective on Long Island, was also acquitted of justice obstruction, the highest position he had faced. The jury in the case had been deliberator since Tuesday after a seven -day trial in the Federal Court of Brooklyn.

The American prosecutor of the Eastern District of New York, John Durham, whose office prosecuted the case, called the 15 -year -old police veteran as a “corrupt detective” who chose loyalty to the mafia “about the public that swore to protect.”

“Hector Rosario worried more about aligning his pockets with money from the Bonanno family and protecting his own interests than his loyalty to the law,” added the District Prosecutor of the County of Nassau, Anne Donnelly. “The investigation work of his fellow detectives was embarked shamefully by bowing to a goal and lied to federal agents while the walls approached him.”

For years, prosecutors said that the 51 -year -old Mineola resident accepted thousands of dollars in payments of members of the Bonanno Crime family.

In return, they said, he told a gangster who was under investigation and sought the speech of the house of a witness who believed he was cooperating with the authorities.

Rosario even directed the raids of the law towards the competence of gambling rooms and carried out his own false police bust in a shoes repair workshop that served as a front for a rival family operation of the Genovese crime family.

Prosecutors said Rosario was interviewed by FBI agents in 2020 while investigating the criminal activity of Bonanno and Genovese in the suburbs east of New York City. But they said he falsely declared that he had no information about the mafia or the illegal game places.

Rosario, who was fired from the department in 2022, faces up to five years in prison.

The position of obstruction of justice entailed a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, but Rosario was acquitted after his lawyers argued that he was not trying to interfere with federal investigation because he did not know that they were investigating their criminal partners, Newsday reported.

Rosario’s lawyers, who remain on bail, did not immediately respond to an email in search of comments on Wednesday. Outside the court, they said they planned to appeal the conviction, the New York Times reported.

During the trial, Rosario’s lawyers argued that the case depended on the unreliable testimony of the gangsters who now cooperate with prosecutors while facing their own criminal charges.

Rosario was one of the nine people accused when the federal authorities revealed what they described as a lucrative racket and setback to the peak of the mafia in New York.

The prosecutors said that the other defendants had colorful nicknames such as “Joe Fish”, “Sal The Shoemaker” and “Joe Box”, and ran the game lair from the front room, such as a cafeteria, a football club and the shoes repair workshop.

In addition to the illegal game, the gangsters faced extortion, money laundering and conspiracy charges.