He says he was guilty of having a name ending in a vowel.
A longtime restaurateur has filed an $8 million lawsuit against the city and the Queens District Attorney’s Office, claiming he was wrongly accused of being involved in a mob-run gambling ring because he has a common Italian name.
“The other guys told the detectives that I was the wrong Cono, and they didn’t listen,” said Cono Natale Jr. (inset), owner of the since-shuttered Cono & Sons O’Pescatore Restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, who filed the suit in Queens Supreme Court.
Natale, 47, of Maspeth, was branded a Bonanno associate when he was arrested on gambling charges in April 2011, along with reputed mobsters Michael Palmaccio, Ronald Salerno and Gerard Gullotti.
“That hurt me the most to be accused of associating with the mob,” said Natale, whose Graham Avenue restaurant closed in 2010 for unrelated reasons.
“It took me over a year to get work — no one wanted to hire me. My business partners turned their backs on me because they thought these accusations were true,” he told The Post.
At the time, the investigators only knew that there was a man named “Cono” who was a “runner” in the sports-betting ring — and they concluded that man was Natale.
“One of the [arrested] guys said, ‘You’re not the Cono I dealt with,’ ” said Natale, who explained that Williamsburg has a large population of Italian-Americans named Cono, on behalf of Saint Cono from Salerno, Italy.
“I was sitting in a cell with three other guys that I never seen before in my life,” he added.
Natale was facing up to four years in prison when he was nabbed.
During his family’s successful 26 years as restaurateurs, the Graham Avenue eatery only made headlines when it served notable figures like Hillary Clinton, Carolyn Kennedy, Kirsten Gillibrand and Mayor Bloomberg.
“I didn’t know what to do when I saw the detectives at my door. I thought someone died,” said Natale, who had a clean record and said he never gambled or placed an illegal bet in his life.
Natale was so unknown by the cops that they mistakenly tied to bust him at his father’s home first by mistake.
“For them to have two years of wiretaps and investigation [and] they didn’t even know the proper address to arrest my client — it shows their incompetence,” said Natale’s attorney Anthony Genovesi.
During several court appearances, Natale’s criminal defense attorney requested to hear the wiretapped recordings, but before they were able to, prosecutors offered a conditional discharge and his file was sealed, said Genovesi.
Meanwhile, his alleged co-defendants admitted to their guilt.
Gullotti was sentenced to 1¹/₂ to 4¹/₂ years in prison, while, while Salerno was ordered to pay $5,000 in fines, and Palmaccio was given a three-year conditional discharge.
“I just want my dignity back and to walk down the street without being talked about negatively,” Natale pleaded.
A spokesman from the Corporation Counsel, which represents the city, the NYPD and the Queens DA’s Office, declined to comment.