A slick-talking con man — who four years ago beat charges of stealing guns from an NYPD station house and then brazenly selling them at a gun buy-back program — has been busted again, this time for a series of sick, prank 911 calls claiming officers were shot.
Ronald DeShields, 39, was arraigned Wednesday in Queens Supreme Court on a 21-count complaint that includes charges of reckless endangerment and falsely reporting incidents.
DeShields, of Queens, allegedly made a total of seven 911 calls on Sunday and Monday for fake emergencies in Jamaica. He was arrested Monday.
The bogus calls included three within five minutes on Sunday claiming a female cop had been shot, another alleging a shooting at a Wendy’s restaurant on Parsons Boulevard and one saying a big fire had broken out at a 161st Street building, according to a criminal complaint.
In each case, cops, firefighters and other emergency crews responded in an “urgent and timely manner,” according to the complaint.
“The defendant’s alleged conduct was both reckless and dangerous, putting the lives of responding personnel and the public at risk, as well diverting scarce city resources from real emergencies,” Queens District Attorney Richard Brown told The Post.
DeShields faces up to 49 years behind bars if convicted. He was held on $20,000 bail.
DeShields has a long rap sheet and a history of impersonating cops and firefighters. He was accused in 2010 of sneaking into the 103rd Precinct station house and stealing guns and other police equipment from lockers.
Authorities, who have previously compared him to infamous con man Frank Abagnale Jr., the subject of the movie “Catch Me If You Can,” claimed DeShields then shamelessly scored $100 hawking a lieutenant’s 9mm Smith & Wesson back to the NYPD in a gun-buyback program in Brooklyn.
A Queens jury acquitted him on those charges in October 2012.
DeShields is also a convicted forger and FDNY buff who conned his way into getting rides on firetrucks in 2007 at Engine Co. 222 in Bedford-Stuyvesant by showing up in stolen gear.