GOSHEN – A former sergeant in the New York City Department of Environmental Protection Police, who sold a “ghost gun” with no serial numbers to an outlaw motorcycle club member, who was also a lieutenant in the Middletown City Fire Department, and later tipped him off that he was a target of a police investigation, was sentenced to 10 years in state prison.
Gregg Marinelli, 39, of Plattekill was sentenced on Wednesday by Orange County Court Judge Craig Stephen Brown following his December 2019 guilty plea to criminal possession of a weapon and hindering prosecution, said District Attorney David Hoovler.
“Any individual in law enforcement who crosses the line to tip off those that we are investigating clearly puts everyone at risk, including the officers that are going through the door, and Mr. Marinelli clearly did just that, and he will spend the next 10 years in state prison for what he did,” said the DA.
At the time Marinelli pled guilty, he admitted to selling a pistol to Paul Smith, who was then a lieutenant in the Middletown Fire Department. Smith had been a central figure in a State Police investigation dubbed “Operation Bread, White, and Blues,” which concentrated on members and associates of self-professed “outlaw” motorcycle clubs trafficking cocaine and others who were selling pills.
Marinelli’s Orange County prison sentence was ordered to run concurrently with sentences he received in Ulster County after pleading guilty to two counts of criminal purchase or disposal of a weapon.
