His luck finally ran out.
A Nassau County police detective allegedly moonlighting for the Bonanno crime family held “at least one” phony raid on rival gambling operations run by a Genovese associate, according to federal court documents.
Ex-cop Hector Rosario is accused of targeting and breaking equipment in Salvatore “Sal the Shoemaker” Rubino’s backdoor casino inside his Long Island store, Sal’s Shoe Repair. The Merrick business served as a front for poker games three times a week and computerized gambling machines.
Rubino and associates pleaded guilty to charges last April.
Rosario, who was first busted in 2022 and released on a $500,000 bond, was allegedly put on the payroll by two members of the Bonanno family to target Rubino’s betting parlor in 2013 or 2014.
He also went after at least two Gambino family-run gambling sites and, in May of 2014, tipped off Nassau police about a gambling operation run by the family, according to January court filings.
The men who put the crooked cop to work have flipped and are expected to testify in Rosario’s Feb. 24 trial for obstructing justice when he allegedly lied to the FBI during interviews in 2020.
The former cop apparently also took his side hustle to heart. One of the witnesses said he saw Rosario “break one of the gambling machines” and shook down the location to find money man Joseph “JoeBox” Rutigliano, who also pleaded guilty in the spring.
The casino was in use from 2012 until the pandemic forced the store’s closure in 2021, the feds said.
Rosario, with the help of one of the witnesses, had also planned a phony police raid on a Hempstead drug dealer, court docs show. That same witness also used Rosario’s access to police databases to see if an associate had become a snitch in 2018.
Meanwhile, the Bonnano and Genovese families also “jointly operated a lucrative illegal gambling business” for 10 years within Lynbrook gelato shop Gran Caffe, the papers added.
The “substantial revenue” from this and other locations became the “lifeblood” of the syndicates’ big shots.
