8 Indicted in Brooklyn-to-Suffolk Family Heroin Ring

Richard Bruno Sr., pictured right, allegedly stored heroin in his Long Island attic for his son, Richard Bruno Jr., pictured left. Photos courtesy of the Suffolk County District Attorney

By RYAN BONNER

More than a quarter million dollars has been seized along with a host of drugs, including 19,000 glassine envelopes of heroin packaged for street sales and a quarter kilogram of uncut heroin, Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota said Monday in detailing an elaborate heroin ring that spanned from Brooklyn to Suffolk.

Eight people–seven from Suffolk and one from Brooklyn–have been arrested in the takedown of the distribution network, Spota said. Three of them, including the main Suffolk County dealer, 26-year-old Richard Bruno Jr., of 1410 Spruce Drive in Holbrook, are charged with the top count operating as a major drug trafficker, Spota said.

The other two ringleaders were 26-year-old Jonathan Rincon, of Brooklyn, and 32-year-old Bryan Koppelman, of Selden, Spota said.

Koppelman regularly sold heroin from his home on Dare Road near an elementary school, Spota said.

““We also know that while the defendant’s girlfriend was hospitalized in Stony Brook to give birth to their son, Koppelman sold heroin on hospital grounds, and on more than one occasion he brought his newborn baby along to drug deals,” Spota said.

Bruno’s father, 59-year-old Richard Bruno Sr., of 66 Cedar Oaks Avenue in Farmingville, is accused of storing his son’s heroin in the attic of his home.

In addition to the heroin and an illegal defaced handgun recovered from the Farmingville house, detectives from the district attorney’s Heroin Task Force recovered $192,000 in cash from a safe and wads of cash totaling $37,000 stashed in the rafters of the attic, Spota said.

A lawyer for Bruno Sr. told Newsday that his client is innocent and had no idea that his son was using his home to operate a drug ring. But prosecutors say Bruno Sr. was well aware and in fact advised his son to launder his heroin profits by establishing a marijuana grow house in rural Pennsylvania and to explain the large utility bills generated by growing pot indoors by growing flowers and tomatoes as well.

Bruno Jr. allegedly purchased the heroin for resale in Suffolk from Rincon, who was on parole for a narcotics felony conviction in Queens.

“From Rincon’s apartment on Ocean Avenue, we seized approximately 5,000 bags worth of uncut heroin and $60,000 cash,” Spota said.

Another man involved in the ring, 39-year-old Rodney Montalvo, set up operations at the Clarion Hotel on Veterans Memorial Highway in Ronkonkoma and picked up 300 to 500 bags of heroin every other day to sell in Suffolk, Spota said. Montalvo, who was also on parole for a prior drug conviction, is charged with second degree conspiracy to sell narcotics.

Erick Castor, of Pickwick Lane in North Babylon, allegedly purchased large amounts of cocaine from Bruno for resale in the Hamptons and in North Babylon. Castor, 30, is charged with third and seventh degree criminal possession of a controlled substance and fourth degree conspiracy.

Prosecutors say heroin and cocaine was also sold in Centereach and Stony Brook.

Crystal methamphetamine, anabolic steroids and assault-style semiautomatic weapons were also seized by task force investigators during the execution of search warrants, Spota said.

The DA’s office did not name the two other people accused of being part of the ring, but Newsday identified them as 26-year-old Michael Saladino, of 1410 Spruce Drive in Holbrook and 28-year-old Joseph McQuade, of 77 Fairview Avenue in Holtsville.

SCDA photos: (from L-R) Richard Bruno Jr., Richard Bruno Sr., Bryan Koppelman, Jonathan Rincon and Erick Castor