Police1 Staff Report
(NEW YORK) -- A police officer, whose brother is an organized crime investigator, was charged with tampering with public records for agreeing to “dispose of” a traffic ticket for a convicted mobster, according to the New York Post.
According to the tabloid newspaper, Officer Gene Santoro pleaded not guilty to charges of tampering with public records, official misconduct, receiving a bribe, receiving a reward for official misconduct and conspiracy stemming from a conversation picked-up by NYPD wiretaps.
Santoro allegedly accepted a bottle of vodka, a Mont Blanc pen and a wallet from Lewis Luxemberg, who was one of several organize crime members arrested in New York City in December 1998, the Post reported.
The Rackets Bureau of the Queens District Attorney’s office was tapping into Luxenberg’s phone as part of an investigation into a $5 million Kennedy Airport heist, it was reported.
“It was a fluke,” an unnamed law enforcement official told the Post. Santoro “got caught up in the middle of a much larger, unrelated investigation.”
Santoro’s brother, Fred, a member of the NYPD’s Organized Crime Investigation Division was not implicated in the matter.