The suspect on trial for murdering a young man at an Upper East Side apartment secretly filmed the son of “Good Day New York” host Rosanna Scotto having sex with hookers so that he could extort him into making his famous mom foot the bill for his own massive gambling losses, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Louis Ruggiero, the son of the popular Fox-5 anchor, testified that defendant James Rackover, 27, confessed to him about the grisly Nov. 13, 2016, slaying of Joseph Comunale after a night of partying in his Sutton Place apartment.
On cross-examination, defense lawyer Maurice Sercarz asked about an illegal sports-betting book the two men bought together for $20,000 and lost money on.
Out of the earshot of jurors, Assistant District Attorney Antoinette Carter said that Rackover — the adopted son of jeweler-to-the-stars Jeffrey Rackover — demanded Ruggiero take full responsibility for the financial losses on the venture or else he’d show his girlfriend graphic videos recorded in the bedroom of his adoptive father’s apartment.
“Mr. Rackover basically tried to threaten Mr. Ruggiero if he did not tell his mother that he was the sole reason for the losses,” Carter said in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Carter said Rackover threatened that he’d show his girlfriend “all of the prostitution photographs and video of the two of them engaging in sexual activity with prostitutes.”
She did not say whether the elder Rackover, 58, was present during the trysts. The gem salesman had a recording device in the bedroom of his Grand Sutton apartment, according to Carter.
Ruggiero was not in the room during the discussion and Justice James Burke nixed Carter’s request to question Ruggiero about the threat in front of jurors.
The 24-year-old said Rackover told him that he and co-defendant Larry Dilione, who is being tried separately, beat up Comunale, killed him, and then buried him in a shallow grave in Oceanport, NJ, behind a florist shop.
During cross-examination, Ruggiero endured uncomfortable questions about his drug addiction, which at its peak cost $1,200 a day and included a mix of cocaine, Xanax, OxyContin and marijuana, he admitted.
The next witness, Assistant Medical Examiner Alex Zhang, described Comunale’s injuries using gruesome autopsy photos as a visual aid.
Rackover struggled to avoid the harrowing images, which flashed up on a screen directly in front of him.
The 26-year-old Hofstra grad’s father, who has attended every day of the trial, left the courtroom for the disturbing testimony.
Zhang said Comunale had a collapsed lung and at least 14 stab wounds, which cut through several major arteries, ultimately causing his death.
Prosecutors displayed a close-up image of a gaping five-inch wound on Comunale’s upper right arm, which Rackover and Dilione allegedly tried to sever after the murder.
Prosecutors rested their case with a recorded call Rackover made from jail to an unspecified woman, boasting that he’d beat the case “like Rocky.”
Defense lawyers Maurice Sercarz and Robert Caliendo put on a single witness, whose testimony was meant to suggest that Dilione was the real killer.
