Scarf-face off to rehab
FDNY ‘drug dealer’ gets a break & a bonk
That’s why they call it dope. A city firefighter accused of trafficking potent drugs tried so hard to dodge photographers outside court Sunday that he walked right into a light pole.
Disgraced Bravest Anthony Murino, who appeared zombie-like in court minutes earlier, is now headed to rehab — on the taxpayers’ dime, according to his lawyer.
“Yes, he will be using his FDNY benefits. Yes, they will be paying the rehab costs,” Robert Gallo, Murino’s lawyer, said after the fireman’s arraignment in Brooklyn federal court.
Murino, 45, of Staten Island has admitted to importing Chinese fentanyl so he could sell the deadly opioid on Big Apple streets, authorities say.
He appeared disheveled and unaware in court — to the point where the judge told him, “You may be too affected by the drugs in your system right now to understand me.
“But you’ve got to get [to rehab], and you’ve got to stay there,” magistrate Judge Steven Gold warned Murino.
The firefighter was freed after his financial-adviser brother, Andrew, ensured his $100,000 bond.
Minutes later, Murino walked outside, his head down and covered with a black-and-white plaid scarf to try to thwart shutterbugs — and headed straight into the pole.
A criminal complaint claims Murino copped to using bitcoin to buy fentanyl — a dangerous synthetic opioid that has up to 50 times the potency of heroin — from a Chinese supplier.
He did not enter a plea on the single charge he faces: importation of a controlled substance.
The judge downplayed the situation as a “drug problem” when setting bond rather than remanding the allegedly drug-addled firefighter to jail.
“I have no interest in keeping someone in prison simply because he has a drug problem,” Gold said.
The prosecutor, US Attorney Temidayo Aganga-Williams, did not say a word during the arraignment.
The Fire Department told The Post it was “standard protocol’’ to pay for its employees’ rehab in this type of case.
Murino was busted after federal investigators intercepted a package for him that came from a known fentanyl distributor in Shanghai, China, according to the complaint.
US Customs and Border Protection agents intercepted the package at JFK Airport on Jan. 9 and found that it contained 23 grams of what tests revealed to be Phenyl fentanyl HCl, the complaint states.
Cops set up a sting and arrested Murino at his home Jan. 12, after he accepted the package from a mail carrier, officials said.
Waiving his Miranda rights, Murino admitted to buying the drugs for resale, the complaint states.