The pilot is a felon.
Veteran aviator Paul Dudley is a convicted cat burglar who once stole thousands of dollars and a pair of wedding rings from a safe in his buddy’s Staten Island restaurant, The Post has learned.
Dudley, 56, and an accomplice used a torch to break into the safe of Rainero’s Eldorado Lounge in Grant City on Aug. 19, 1979, when he was 24 years old, law-enforcement sources said yesterday.
And the victim still holds a grudge.
“He was a brainiac, but he did some things that went in the wrong direction,” said ex-restaurant owner Danny Rainero, 59, when told about the copter crash.
Dudley knew the eatery’s layout inside-out because he was a regular customer who often “sat in the office with my dad,” said Rainero, who owned the restaurant with his father, Lou, a retired cop, from 1973 to 1989.
“He befriended myself and my father. He knew what he had to do,” Rainero said from his Florida home.
He said the pair pulled off the heist like pros — cutting telephone wires to disable the alarm and using blowtorches to burn the tumblers from the safe.
“He burnt it open. I forgot how much money [he took] — $4,000 sounds about right,” he said.
Cops found Dudley six months later on Feb. 18, 1980 — with a loaded, unlicensed .32-caliber handgun in his possession.
He was charged with criminal possession of a weapon and burglary.
He pleaded guilty to reduced charges on Nov. 18, 1980, and was sentenced to five years probation and ordered to pay $2,500.