BY ANN GIVENS
Newsday
NEW YORK — In a case the Nassau County district attorney called “the most egregious betrayal of the badge imaginable,” a former Queens police officer has been arrested for selling guns from his precinct’s evidence room on the streets of Long Island.
Hubertus Vannes, 30, of Roslyn Heights, was arrested yesterday, shortly after two men accused of working with him were also picked up by law enforcement officials.
“You have a police officer who swore to protect the people he served, and instead he went out and betrayed them,” Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice said at a news conference yesterday.
Prosecutors said Vannes, who worked for three years in the NYPD’s 110th precinct in Queens until earlier this year, stole several guns from his precinct’s property bureau and sold them to Anthony Vitta, 44, of East Meadow, who prosecutors say dealt arms and prescription drugs.
An East Meadow pharmacy owner, Howard Brass, 48, of North Bellmore, was arrested for forging prescriptions, then funneling illegal drugs to Vitta to sell, prosecutors said.
Defense attorneys could not be reached for comment.
Prosecutors said they began investigating the case in February after they got a tip that someone was dealing guns and prescription drugs in East Meadow. Undercover investigators bought guns from Vitta, and quickly traced them back to Vannes’ precinct, which had reported them missing.
NYPD spokesman Martin Speechley declined to comment on the stolen guns. He would not comment on the reason why Vannes left the force.
Through Vitta, prosecutors tracked down Brass, the owner of Meadow Drugs in East Meadow. They said Brass fabricated patient names and prescriptions to dispense hundreds of thousands of dollars in drugs to Vitta, who resold them.
All three men pleaded not guilty to various drug and weapon charges.