NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — A Staten Island NYPD detective was arrested on weapons and official misconduct charges after he was caught with nearly two dozen illegal guns in his home, including multiple ghost guns, Richmond County District Attorney Michael McMahon announced on Wednesday.
Anthony Sciortino—a 13-year police veteran assigned as a detective in the 120th Precinct serving the North Shore of Staten Island—was charged for manufacturing ghost guns, failing to report multiple firearms within his possession, falsifying business records and tampering with public records to make a false entry line of duty incident report, prosecutors said.
The arrest comes after a search warrant was executed at his Prince’s Bay home on Tuesday night, resulting in the seizure of 19 illegal weapons, which the district attorney called “a small army’s worth of unregistered weapons.”
The make, model, caliber and serial number of the weapons were never reported to the NYPD, as is required by statute, and four of them were untraceable ghost guns.
“These illegal and dangerous weapons could have exacted untold amounts of harm to our fellow Staten Islanders,” McMahon said. “As Mr. Sciortino knows well, ghost guns are illegal, are incredibly difficult to track by law enforcement when used in the commission of a crime, and have no place on Staten Island.”
Sciortino, 35, was arraigned on the indictment filed against him Wednesday morning. Prosecutors said that bail was requested in the amount of $50,000 cash and $150,000 bond, but supervised release was set by the presiding judge.
“Mr. Sciortino used and abused the public trust and betrayed his sworn oath to protect and serve by falsifying line of duty incident reports and using his position as an NYPD Detective to access personnel records for unauthorized, unofficial, and nefarious purposes,” McMahor said. “Simply put, this brazen act of misconduct undermines the noble mission of law enforcement, weakens the public’s trust in the criminal justice system, and makes those we are sworn to protect and serve less safe.”