Nassau County cop allegedly on mob payroll staged fake raid that didnt fool illicit gamblers: These are not real police

This is what happens when you hire bargain-basement wiseguys.The Nassau County cop who allegedly worked for the Bonanno crime family bungled a raid on a rival family’s gambling den so badly that it totally failed to fool the victimized gangsters — including a gambler named “Mario the Landscaper,” who quickly said, “These are not real police,” a court heard Wednesday.“It wasn’t professionally done — you could see it was fake,” mobster Sal Russo testified Wednesday at ex-officer Hector Rosario’s trial for obstruction and serving as a soldier for the Bonannos in their struggles against the rival Genovese crime family.“I just heard yelling and screaming, ‘This is the police! This is the police!’” Russo testified about the shocking raid.“They broke the screens on one of the machines, and they kept screaming, ‘This police! This police!’ before they left the store.”But the fake sortie — which targeted Salvatore “Sal the Shoemaker” Rubino’s illegal casino inside his Merrick store, Sal’s Shoe Repair — was so shoddily done that none of the illicit gamblers thought Rosario and his small crew actually cops.“These are not real police,” Mario the Landscaper, who Russo described as a “steady player at Sal’s,” allegedly told the others after the initial shock wore off.“They don’t just come in breaking [things],” Russo said, quoting Mario.

Russo testified that the low budget raid by Rosario — who was only being paid $1,500-a-month by the Mafia — looked so fake he feared he might get clipped by the Genovese bosses in retaliation.When asked what he thought might happen to him, Russo answered, “Hospital, cemetery … anything.”The b-grade raid on the gambling den wasn’t the only bungling by the alleged dumb-fella.At a later point, Rosario tried to play like a movie Mafioso and talk to Russo about a pot growing operation in a code that involved a movie he saw in Netflix.“When I get the name of the movie, try...