LI judge orders separate trial for mob associate Frank Saggio, charged in Holbrook brothel case

The alleged leader of a prostitution ring will be tried separately from his three co-defendants, including a Suffolk police officer and an Islip physical education teacher, a Suffolk County judge ruled Wednesday in Riverhead.

Attorney Anthony La Pinta, of Hauppauge, asked Suffolk Supreme Court Justice Timothy Mazzei to sever his client, self-proclaimed mafia associate Frank Saggio, of West Islip, because attorneys for two other defendants — Saggio’s girlfriend, Dana Ciardullo, of North Bellmore, and suspended Islip teacher Steven Arey — have indicated they will argue Saggio was the culpable party in the case.

Mazzei agreed to separate Saggio’s prosecution from charges filed against Ciardullo, Arey and former Suffolk Police Officer George F. Trimigliozzi after Kevin Ward, the chief of the Suffolk District Attorney’s Public Corruption Bureau, and Deputy Chief Laura de Oliveira, told the judge they opposed the motion.

Mazzei ordered Saggio, 60, to return to court on Aug. 14. It is not clear if Trimigliozzi, 56, Ciardullo, 32, and Arey, 54, will be tried together or separately.

Later on Wednesday, Mazzei held a hearing to determine if statements Trimigliozzi made to Suffolk District Attorney investigator Stan Carter and an FBI special agent at the former officer’s home in August 2024 should be admissible in court. When the investigators asked Trimigliozzi if he knew Saggio, Carter testified during the hearing, he acknowledged that he had met him but declined to discuss Saggio’s business interests.

"I know the guy’s got money," Trimigliozzi told the investigators, according to Carter. Trimigliozzi then ended the questioning after asking the investigators if he should "lawyer up."

"My client was never in business with Saggio," Trimigliozzi’s attorney, William Keahon, of Hauppauge, said during the hearing. A sex worker presented with an array of photos identified Trimigliozzi — although she said she was not positive about it — and Keahon has asked the judge to rule that evidence inadmissible as well.

Trimigliozzi, charged with 13 counts of enterprise corruption, two counts of falsifying business records, filing a false instrument and official misconduct, has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Trimigliozzi allegedly collected proceeds from sex workers and coordinated their schedules at a Holbrook brothel, officials said. He managed the brothel with Arey, a physical education teacher who was suspended by the Islip School district, according to prosecutors.

In a separate case, Trimigiliozzi is charged with three counts of first-degree sexual abuse, third-degree rape and second-degree unlawful imprisonment.

Prosecutors said Trimigliozzi took a woman he met on a dating app out for a date in Hampton Bays on June 10, 2022, and pushed her down on her bed, raping her, after asking for a tour of her home, where she had invited him in to sober up before riding his motorcycle home.

A year earlier, on May 14, 2021, Trimigliozzi is alleged to have touched a woman's intimate parts during a date in Patchogue while she was seated in the passenger seat of his car, prosecutors said. Trimigliozzi reached over the woman and closed a door she had opened to leave the vehicle, then placed his body between her and the door, blocking her escape, prosecutors said. Trimigliozzi pleaded not guilty to the charges in May.

Trimigliozzi was suspended without pay from the Suffolk County Police Department in August 2024 while he was under investigation in the brothel case. Suffolk District Attorney Ray Tierney said at the time of Trimigliozzi's arrest in October that the suspension was not related to the investigation into the Holbrook business but rather "other incidents of alleged misconduct" from "allegations that he failed to perform his duties."

Arey pleaded not guilty to 28 felony counts, including enterprise corruption and promoting prostitution, in October. Ciardullo, also charged with enterprise corruption and promoting prostitution, has also pleaded not guilty.

Tierney has said the investigation that resulted in the arrest of Trimigliozzi and the other defendants began in March 2021, when a sex worker at the Holbrook brothel managed by Trimigliozzi and Arey told the Suffolk police officer that the business had been robbed.

Trimigliozzi, in uniform, raced from his location in Islip Terrace to the brothel in his police car at speeds approaching 90 mph, prosecutors said. His appearance raised eyebrows among his fellow officers — the veteran officer had traveled almost 6 miles outside of his patrol area without permission, prosecutors said. The brothel, in the 6000 block of Sunrise Highway, was located in the Fifth Precinct coverage area, while Trimigliozzi was assigned to the neighboring Third Precinct.

His actions that night, according to Tierney, kicked off a clandestine, yearslong investigation that resulted in the indictment of Trimigliozzi and his three co-defendants.

CORRECTION:  Suffolk prosecutors opposed a motion to sever the prosecution of Frank Saggio from other defendants. A previous version of this story misstated the prosecution's position.