DRUG-DEALER ROB RAP
Son of FDNY big faces new trouble, including pretending to be cop
The troubled son of an FDNY chief was hit with federal robbery charges Tuesday for impersonating a cop and swiping drugs from a man he tried to “arrest,” prosecutors said.
Robert Gala, a former FDNY emergency medical technician, was busted by the feds for stopping a man on 63rd St. near 17th Ave. in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, around 7:30 p.m. on July 24, 2017.
Gala pulled out a gold badge, ordered the man to place his hands on a wall and used plastic handcuffs to restrain the victim while he searched his pockets, according to court papers.
The victim told the FBI last year that Gala stole 180 pills of oxycodone from him. The man said he planned to sell the drugs and previously told NYPD officers that Gala didn’t take anything from him, according to the feds.
Gala was identified as the cop-impersonating thief by someone who recognized him from surveillance video released to the media.
A police officer who previously arrested him provided a second ID, prosecutors said.
The victim did not cooperate with authorities after the crime, and Gala wasn’t charged even though he copped to it, law enforcement sources said.
“You know the guy that I robbed is a drug dealer, right?” Gala told police officers during an interview at the 84th Precinct stationhouse in December 2017, the feds claim. “The news made it sound worse than it was. I was just in a bad place and figured he was a bad guy and I needed pills. I didn’t think it out. I didn’t think he would call the cops.”
That robbery, as well as a
Department of Investigation report about Gala’s accused misdeeds while he was a member of the FDNY, were exclusively reported by the Daily News in August 2018.
Gala was arrested on July 21, 2017 on Staten Island — just three days before the Brooklyn robbery — for un
lawful use of a police emblem, possession of an imitation pistol and unlawful possession of handcuffs.
The charges in that case were eventually tossed at the request of the Staten Island DA
He was able to get a job with FDNY despite an arrest history dating to 2013 — the first time Gala was popped for impersonating a police officer — and at least one stint in a drug rehab facility, city documents show.
Gala is the son of Michael Gala, an NYPD deputy assistant chief.
The DOI found Robert Gala flagged himself for fake calls to get out of responding to emergency ambulance runs and that he forged his partner’s signature as part of his coverup.
His partner told DOI that Gala did this more than once.
Gala resigned from the FDNY in May 2019.
His father bailed him out Tuesday, signing a $150,000 bail package at his son’s arraignment.
“When you’re feeling bad for yourself, just remember: Not everybody has a father who will drop everything to come bail them.out,” Magistrate Judge Lois Bloom told Robert Gala.