Saying that a former New York police officer had breached
the public’s trust in a scheme to transport firearms and stolen merchandise, a
federal judge sentenced him on Friday to nearly five years in prison.
“The offenses are indisputably serious, without any hint of
justification,” the judge, John G. Koeltl, said as the former officer, William
Masso, 48, closed his eyes and clutched a rosary.
A few minutes before Judge Koeltl, of Federal District Court
in Manhattan, imposed the sentence of 57 months, the minimum suggested by
guidelines, Mr. Masso addressed the court.
“I don’t know how to express how much I really am sorry,” he
said, pausing to wipe away tears. “My actions have disgraced me, my family and
my friends, and especially the New York City Police Department, who I consider
family.”
Mr. Masso, who had been a police officer for more than 18
years, worked at the 68th Precinct in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, before he was
dismissed in February after pleading guilty to four conspiracy counts.
Prosecutors said he was the ringleader of the scheme.
His lawyer, Ronald Fischetti, told Judge Koeltl that Mr.
Masso’s previous contributions as an officer should be weighed in his favor. He
said that Mr. Masso, whom he called “destitute” and “a broken man,” had
volunteered to work amid the smoking rubble of the World Trade Center shortly
after it was destroyed, and helped another officer as she recuperated from
serious injuries she suffered in a police-car crash. He also asked the judge to
consider the fact that his client had been ensnared in a sting.
“There are no victims,” he said. “There was no violence.”
A prosecutor for the United States attorney’s office in
Manhattan countered that “the defendant took an oath to uphold the law and protect
the public.”
“He undermined the public trust in every police officer out
on the street,” the prosecutor, Carrie H. Cohen, said.
Mr. Masso was charged in the fall in an indictment that
accused a dozen men of transporting cigarettes, slot machines and guns across
state lines. Five of the defendants, including Mr. Masso, were active-duty
police officers working in Brooklyn. Two others were New York police officers
when the investigation began but left the force before it ended. Other
defendants included a retired New York City police officer, a member of the New
York City Sanitation Department Police and a correction officer in New Jersey.
Prosecutors said that Mr. Masso organized and led the group,
even recruiting an officer he was training in his precinct, and instructed
members to carry their badges while moving items they thought were stolen.
The investigation began in 2009, a complaint said, when an
informer working for federal authorities told Mr. Masso that he was looking for
someone to help him fix tickets. Mr. Masso eventually made agreements with the
informer and an undercover federal agent posing as the informer’s boss to
transport the cigarettes and other items.
Last July, the complaint said, Mr. Masso and others went to
a hotel in Manhattan, where they sold a customized shotgun to the undercover
agent for $2,000.
The most serious charges involved events in September, when,
the complaint said, Mr. Masso and others picked up 20 firearms packed in a
suitcase and a duffel bag from a warehouse in New Jersey. The complaint said
that Mr. Masso drove the weapons, which included three M-16 rifles, a shotgun
and 16 pistols, most with obliterated serial numbers, to a warehouse on Long
Island.
While transporting the weapons, prosecutors said, Mr. Masso
displayed his police jacket, with the letters “NYPD” visible, in the window of
his vehicle.