Stick a fork in this tasteful thief.
A career criminal with a five-star palate was busted for stealing cases of lobsters, salmon, shrimp and pastrami from the back of delivery trucks bound for Manhattan restaurants, law-enforcement sources said yesterday.
“I want to party with him!” chuckled Joe Phair, general manager of Bobby Van’s Grill on West 45th Street, where some of the gourmet items were headed when Charles Ross allegedly struck on Monday.
Ross, who is known to cops in Midtown, allegedly looted the trucks at around 9:20 a.m. Monday and was seen by a local cop hauling the grub on a handcart on West 47th Street, the sources said.
The officer questioned Ross about his groceries while other cops searched the area and found two delivery trucks missing the items he was pushing around.
The haul included 22 pounds of live lobsters, 25 pounds of salmon, and large boxes of shrimp and pastrami, the sources said. The trucks were bound for Bobby Van’s and a local food distributor.
Ross was booked for the heists and charged in the Aug. 22 theft of six cases of steaks from a delivery truck parked outside 550 Madison Ave.
Ross is being held in lieu of $20,000 bond on charges of burglary, grand larceny and possession of stolen property.
A man who answered Ross’ cellphone yesterday told The Post the ex-con was more interested in cash.
He said Ross had long been swiping food from restaurant delivery trucks and “selling it” to high-end eateries and other people.
“A couple of thousand a week,” the man said when asked how much Ross was raking in from ripping off restaurant fare.
He said Ross “is actually really smart.”
“He knows a lot about life and business and school and math,” the buddy said.
Ross, who is married, used to be a schoolteacher “years ago, and he just fell off,” the friend said.
The friend had spoken to Ross this week, and the ex-con knows “he’s going to do time” again, the pal said.
Phair, the manager of Bobby Van’s, said the steakhouse didn’t incur any losses from the theft of the food.
“If it happens before I sign for it, I don’t care,” Phair said.
Ross has done three stints in state prison, including a 15-year stay for robbery that began in 1975, more than three years for robbing phones from an store in Manhattan in 1992, and 1 1/2 years for a drug case.
He has 10 other misdemeanor arrests in New York City, as well as a criminal record in Florida.