#Son of FDNY boss busted for 2017 robbery of drug dealer, posing as cop

A disgraced ex-EMT posed as a police officer — and even used plastic handcuffs — to rob an alleged drug dealer of pills because he “didn’t think he would call the cops,” authorities said Tuesday.

Robert Gala — the 28-year-old son of FNDY Chief of Personnel Michael Gala — was arrested by FBI agents Tuesday in connection with the three-year-old robbery in Bensonhurst, according to authorities.

The young Gala allegedly approached the dealer on 63rd Street between 17th and 18th avenues on July 24, 2017, flashed a gold shield and ordered the unnamed man to put his hands up against the wall, according to the criminal complaint filed in Brooklyn federal court.

Gala then whipped out his disposable cuffs, slapped the plastic shackles on the man and rummaged through his pockets, stealing roughly 180 oxycodone pills, the criminal complaint reads.

NYPD officers eventually caught up with Gala on Dec. 1 that year and, according to the complaint, he told the cops, “You know that guy I robbed is a drug dealer, right?”

“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,” he said, according to the complaint.

Cops went back to the robbery victim in 2019 and he admitted to police that he had filed a scrip for 180 pills and had made a deal to sell the pills for $20 each to someone else, the complaint reads.

The Brooklyn DA declined to prosecute the case “in part because [the victim] had not made” an in-person identification of Gala, the complaints say.

Additional details of the case were not available since the arrest was sealed.

Gala is expected to appear in federal court Tuesday afternoon.

An attorney for Gala declined to comment on the allegations. 

This was not the first the former EMT made headlines.

Two years ago, he was called on to resign after allegedly ignoring 911 calls, according to PIX11.

In 2014, the FDNY was accused of overlooking two summonses for arrests in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

A few months earlier, Gala crashed into a school bus with 16 boys on board as he was speeding through Brooklyn in an ambulance.