A reputed Gambino associate whose criminal past and crumbling marriage were featured on the 2011 reality show “I Married a Mobster” is up to his old tricks.
Fiore “Philly” Caruso, 59 — who once did a prison stint for drug-trafficking — has been indicted for allegedly selling undercover cops $23,000 worth of cocaine and nearly $17,000 in guns, the Special Narcotics Prosecutor’s Office said Friday.
Caruso and his three cohorts — including his much younger 25-year-old wife, Berenice Albarran — met with undercovers at least six times between August and December at places such as an East Village Starbucks and near Bryant Park to conduct the drug and gun sales.
In 1995, Caruso was slapped with 15 years to life in prison for running a drug ring in Nassau County –- a life he kept secret from his then-wife Cheryl, he admitted on the popular Discovery TV show.
“It was a traumatic experience — obviously, I’d never been to prison before,” he said on the show. “It was really a depressing place, some of the cells, they look like dungeons.”
Before his latest arrest, Caruso unwittingly made a sale to cops Nov. 13, outside an East Village Starbucks, where he traded a bag with six guns and ammo with an undercover agent for $13,000 cash, authorities said.
Six days later, he allegedly sold three more firearms and ammo for $3,800 to an undercover near Bryant Park.
At his arraignment Friday in Manhattan Supreme Court, prosecutors ripped Caruso for bragging on the TV show about his mob connections and laundering $150,000 a week for the mafia.
He also boasted about using violence to “ensure that debts people owe to him get paid,” prosecutors said.
“Mr. Caruso personally brokered nearly all of the 12 cocaine or firearm sales in this case,” said Assistant District Attorney Erik Aho.
Also indicted were Albarran, John Ennis and John Contreras.
The four were arrested Dec. 9.
Defense attorney Theodore Herlich said Caruso’s appearance on the TV show was just for fun.
“It’s an entertainment show. To put any credence or credibility to what someone would say on a reality TV show is preposterous,” Herlich said.
Caruso and Ennis were nabbed after exiting a car in New Jersey. Cops found $13,000 in cash on Caruso, as well as cocaine and 100 oxycodone and Xanax pills in the car.
Contreras was arrested at a Starbucks on Second Avenue where he believed he was meeting a drug buyer. He was found in possession of cocaine, Molly and more than 700 prescription pills.
Police seized 70 grams of cocaine, 35 grams of suspected MDMA, more than 5,000 prescription pills and $2,500 cash when they arrested Albarran at Caruso and Ennis’ Weehawken apartment.