SOUTH OZONE PARK — The grandson of a former Gambino family associate who allegedly orchestrated the shooting of his former boss at a Manhattan construction site was caught Tuesday morning applying for a new constructing job at JFK, officials and sources said.
Robert Sasso, 31, was nabbed by Port Authority cops for allegedly arranging a hit on foreman Louis Lamburini in retaliation for being fired from his job, according to a Port Authority spokesman and sources.
Sasso was also wanted for questioning related to a previous NYPD homicide case in the 109th Precinct in Queens, the Port Authority spokesman said.
A source said Sasso, of Queens, is the grandson of Robert Sasso, 79, a onetime president of the powerful construction union Teamsters Local 282 who resigned in 1992 over alleged Mafia ties and later spent time in federal prison.
The younger Sasso's father, Robert Sasso Jr., was also a Gambino associate convicted in 1994 on gun trafficking charges who spent three years in federal prison.
According to the Port Authority, the younger Sasso was nabbed shortly after 9 a.m. Tuesday after he walked into a construction trailer on Lefferts Boulevard in the JFK Airport complex and asked about a job.
An eagle-eyed union worker alerted police after becoming suspicious that the applicant was a suspect in Monday morning's shooting of 56-year-old Lamburini, a maintenance foreman for Judlau Contracting who was shot in the stomach while he sat in a parked van near a construction site at Ninth Avenue and West 49th Street.
Law enforcement sources said Lamburini had canned Sasso from his construction job recently for treating his employment as though it were a no-show job.
In retaliation, police believe Sasso enlisted the aid of a crony, identified by sources as Anthony Manco, of Queens, to participate in the botched hit on Lamburini.
Police said Lamburini was fired at three times, and they believe Manco was the triggerman and that Sasso was the getaway driver behind the wheel of a stolen car.
Sources say cops spotted Manco driving the stolen vehicle in the Rockaways early Tuesday morning. Manco, a suspected heroin addict, was taken into custody, and Sasso was nabbed a short time later at JFK.
Lamburini was brought to Bellevue Hospital for treatment and was expected to make a full recovery. Police said he was "not 100 percent cooperative."
Sources said both Manco and Sasso are being eyed as suspects in the May 3 murder of 55-year-old Leslie Balogh, who was shot to death at 31-50 137th St. in Flushing. Balogh was shot three times in the face at close range and nothing was taken from his home, sources said.
Balogh's family told investigators at the time that he was a heroin addict and that they believed the murder was drug related, sources said.
Manco was arraigned on charges of attempted murder in the second degree, attempted assault in the first degree, two counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree and one count of assault in the second degree.
He was remanded to the court's customdy and will appear in Brooklyn on Friday for an unrelated shooting.
