Ex-‘Cop of the Month’ who worked as pimp for mob-linked LI hooker ring lands behind bars
Pimpin’ ain’t easy for sleazy cops.
A former Suffolk County “Cop of the Month” landed two years in prison Monday for moonlighting as a mob-linked Holbrook brothel’s manager.
Disgraced ex-policeman George Trimigliozzi –a 56-year-old father of two who repeatedly received the outstanding-officer award during his 18-year career with the county department — was sentenced after pleading guilty to promoting prostitution and official misconduct charges.
At one point in 2021, the rogue cop even abandoned his police post to respond to a robbery at the brothel, the American Girls Spa, speeding toward it at 90 mph in his patrol car, prosecutors said.
“It is particularly egregious when a sworn police officer abandons his duty to participate in
criminal activity,” said Ray Tierney, district attorney for Suffolk County, in a statement.
“George Trimigliozzi violated public trust when he chose to manage a brothel instead of upholding the law.”
A years-long probe resulted in the arrests last year of Trimigliozzi and Steven Arey, a nearly three-decade-long employee of the Islip School District, where he worked as a phys ed teacher.
The seemingly straight-laced pair led double lives working as brothel managers for known mafia associate Frank Saggio, who hatched the prostitution scheme in 2019, prosecutors said.
Saggio oversaw a network of brothels — including the American Girls Spa along Sunrise Highway and the Tunnel of Love in West Babylon — for which he demanded sex workers to pay the crooks between $6,000 to $12,000 a month to operate there.
Trimigliozzi, Saggio and the mobster’s girlfriend Dana Ciardullo, 33, who ran the Tunnel of Love, all pleaded guilty to charges in September.
Saggio, under his plea, must pay nearly $1.88 million in restitution. He waits sentencing. Ciardullo’s sentencing is scheduled Dec. 18.
Prosecutors also accused Trimigliozzi in May of sexually abusing a pair of women that he met on dating apps, using his badge to gain their trust.
The sexual abuse and rape charges Trimigliozzi originally faced were dropped when he copped a plea to second-degree unlawful imprisonment.
Arey, who faces an enterprise corruption charge and 27 counts of promoting prostitution, is next expected to appear in court Wednesday.
