An NYPD detective from Staten Island manufactured an arsenal of “ghost guns,” falsified reports about line-of-duty police incidents, and accessed NYPD records for “nefarious” reasons, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Anthony Sciortino, 35, a 13-year NYPD veteran assigned to Staten Island’s 120th Precinct, was hit with a 17-count indictment Wednesday, a day after police raided his Prince’s Bay home and found 19 illegal firearms, prosecutors on Staten Island said.
Sciortino — who was arrested in connection with the raid — never registered those guns with the NYPD, as he’s required to by law. Plus, four of them were untraceable, so-called ghost guns with no serial numbers, prosecutors said.
The indictment doesn’t detail how investigators learned of his illegal arms cache, which he started building as early as 2020, when he created a machine gun and an assault rifle, prosecutors allege.
The make-them-yourself weapons are dubbed ghost guns because they’re essentially untraceable —made out of 3D-printed pieces and parts that are often bought online.
“While all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty, Mr. Sciortino is alleged to have deceitfully amassed a small army’s worth of unregistered weapons, in addition to
personally manufacturing multiple unlicensed, unregistered and untraceable ghost guns and assault weapons,” Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon said Wednesday.
Sciortino also “used and abused the public trust” by falsifying line-of-duty incident reports and accessing personnel records for “unofficial and nefarious purposes,” according to prosecutors.
The indictment doesn’t describe the nature of the falsified reports or offer more details on who he was accessing records about and why.
Sciortino was arraigned in Staten Island Supreme Court Wednesday. Prosecutors asked that he be held on $50,000 cash bail or $150,000 bond, but Judge John McPadden ordered him cut loose on supervised release, over prosecutors’ objections.
Sciortino’s lawyer, Maria Guastella, did not immediately return a message seeking comment Wednesday.
It’s not clear if the detective’s arrest will affect any cases he helped build on Staten Island.
“We’re going to do a full review of cases involving the defendant,” said McMahon spokesman James Clinton. “We’re going to do our due diligence.”