Fairfax County Police Watch: Bay Ridge cop: I’m a gunrunner

By Dan MacLeod

A former cop now a gun runner is facing more than five years in prison now that he’s pleaded guilty to bootlegging more than $1 million in stolen goods.

William Masso, a 68th Precinct officer arrested in October along with four other active and retired Bay Ridge cops, tearfully pleaded guilty to four counts of conspiracy in Manhattan federal court on Monday. He automatically lost his job, will receive prison time, and be forced to pay a $50,000 fine when he comes back to court for sentencing on June 15, federal prosecutors said.

Masso is still facing 20 years, but the plea deal hammered out on Monday ensures that the actual punishment could be reduced to just five or six years on his sentencing date, according to published reports.

“William Masso brought dishonor and disrepute to his fellow officers and was willing to endanger others for his own personal gain,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement. “With today’s guilty plea, the NYPD, which is the finest police force in the world, is one step closer to putting this sorry episode behind it.”

Masso’s lawyer, Ron Fischetti, told reporters outside court that his client was a “broken man” who allowed a small transgression to get out of hand.

“He was trying to buy a house for his family and he started [running] cigarettes. It just got bigger and bigger,” Fischetti explained. “He got sucked in and just ran and ran and ran. His family is just absolutely crushed.”

Feds arrested Masso and his crew last October following a two-year investigation that culminated in a sting operation.

Prosecutors claim the gang imported $1 million worth of cigarettes, slot machines and a wide variety of firearms, including M-16 rifles, 16 handguns and a shotgun.

The investigation began in 2009, when an undercover informant learned about Masso’s bootlegging activities and began recording conversations with the cop.

On one tape, Masso, 48, told the stoolie that his cop buddies could provide protection for anyone smuggling untaxed cigarettes into the state.

“Whatever he wants we can get — one guy 7-foot tall, with muscles out to here,” Masso said in one recording. “We got that. You want a guy who beat the [bejesus] out of somebody who bothers him, we got that. We got cops with vests and guns.”

Sources told Brooklyn Daily in October that Masso — cousin to Genovese crime-family capo Alphonse “Allie Shades” Malangone — was attracted to the gritty glamour of the mafia lifestyle.

“Masso was always a wannabe wise guy,” said one police source.

The feds busted the cops after the informant asked Masso’s crew, which included 68th Precinct Police Officers Eddie Goris and John Mahoney, as well as retired 68th Precinct Police Officers Joseph Trischitta, Marco Venezia and Richard Melnik, to buy a cache of firearms — which the FBI rendered inoperable — and transport them to New York.

Once the job was completed, the FBI swooped in and arrested the five officers — which some in Bay Ridge considered neighborhood heroes.

Trischitta and Venezia, who worked in the 68th Precinct’s Community Affairs office, had been lauded several times during their careers in Bay Ridge. Venezia even received a commendation from state Sen. Marty Golden (R–Bay Ridge), a former cop himself, when the community affairs cop retired in 2010.

Golden later said that he regretted honoring Venezia.

Morrogh finds cop he doesn’t love. In other news, hell freezes.

Probe of fatal police shooting goes to federal authorities

By Justin Jouvenal/Post

The Fairfax County prosecutor has turned over the investigation of a fatal police shooting of an unarmed Springfield man to federal authorities, citing complications with the five-month-old case.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia has agreed to continue the probe into the death of 46-year-old John Geer, who was shot during a standoff with Fairfax County police in August. No one has been charged in the incident.

“There is a conflict of interest that has arisen in the case,” Morrogh said Thursday. “And there is a second potential conflict of interest that has arisen out of my office. . . . This is the prudent thing to do.”

Morrogh declined to describe the nature of the conflicts because the investigation is ongoing. The U.S. attorney’s office said Thursday that it could not confirm or deny any investigation or comment on pending investigations.

Police went to Geer’s Pebble Brook Court home on Aug. 29 because of a report of a domestic disturbance. Geer’s father, Don Geer, said his son was upset because his girlfriend, the mother of his two children, had decided to leave him.

John Geer had thrown his girlfriend’s belongings in the front yard. She called police and told them that Geer had a firearm. Police said they tried for about 50 minutes to persuade Geer to leave the home, but he refused.

Don Geer said he watched the climax of the encounter. He said that he could not hear what officers were saying to his son but that he saw him standing with empty hands resting on top of a screen door at the home’s entrance.

At some point, John Geer began to slowly lower his hands and an officer opened fire, hitting Geer in the chest, his father said. Geer retreated inside and closed the door. A SWAT team eventually entered the home and found Geer dead.

Don Geer said detectives later told him that his son did not have a gun on him at the time of the shooting but that there was a holstered handgun a couple of steps from the front door.

Don Geer said it appeared to him that the shooting was unjustified, but he was unsure what to make of the probe being turned over to federal authorities.

“I don’t know whether that’s good or bad — if I had a better idea of why they are doing it, I could form an opinion,” he said.

Geer and friends of his son have been critical of how long the investigation has taken, but Morrogh said police and prosecutors were working to explore all the evidence. He did not think federal prosecutors would have to start from scratch.

“No one wants these things to linger on,” Morrogh said.

Our ink will outlast his career

Under the reign of former Chief of Police Rhorer the Fairfax County Police arrested a man for not wearing clothes in his house while he made coffee, set up an eye doctor on a gambling charge and then used the SWAT team to kill him. An investigation into the charge that the Doctor’s primary clients were cops has never been investigated. The police gunned down an emotionally unstable man because cop who shot him wrongly assumed the man was trying to escape. He wasn’t. The cops also shot dead four other citizens under highly questionable circumstances. The department under Rhorer was sued multiple times by citizens. So did they fire Rhorer? Naw they promoted him. According to news reports Rhorer draws a salary of $191,168 per year as Deputy Fairfax County Executive as well as a concurrent pension from the Fairfax County police of $173000 per year.

Occupation by force

According to the most recent U.S. Census figures, nearly one in five Fairfax residents (17.5 percent) is of Asian descent while Hispanics make up nearly 16 percent of Fairfax’s overall population. Those numbers drop considerably when applied to the Fairfax County Police Department, where only 4.3 percent of officers are Asian and 4.1 percent Hispanic. White officers make up 84 percent of Fairfax County’s 1,360-member police department, significantly higher than the county’s general population (54 percent white). Almost 90% of the force lives outside the county.