In what could be a case of the sins of the father being visited upon his son, new Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson fired three detective investigators last week — including a low-level investigator who is the son of his hated opponent’s right-hand man.
Andrew Vecchione, 26, is the son of controversial former rackets chief Michael Vecchione, whom Thompson sharply criticized during his bitter campaign against former DA Charles Hynes last year, vowing to fire him once he took office in January.
But the elder Vecchione retired in December, before Thompson could carry out his vow.
“He couldn’t retaliate against me because I left, so he retaliated against my son,” Michael Vecchione told The Post.
“The DA used my son as a form of vengeance . . . They fired him for no reason other than he had the wrong last name.”
Sources said that while the other pink-slipped detective investigators had high-level spots that Thompson wanted to fill with his own handpicked people, there was no good explanation for why Andrew Vecchione was booted.
“It’s vindictive, it’s mean, and there’s no reason in the world why a guy like that should be fired,” said a law-enforcement source.
“They told him they were going in a different direction,” said Michael Vecchione. “What different direction could there be for a kid who goes and serves subpoenas and escorts prisoners?”
DA spokeswoman Sheila Stainback declined to comment, saying the office would not discuss personnel matters.
The elder Vecchione’s track record became a key issue in the DA’s race, when Thompson called on Hynes to fire his veteran rackets chief for allegedly intimidating witnesses and coercing false testimony, “botching one case after the next.”
“Michael Vecchione, a longtime ally of DA Hynes . . . has been accused of numerous instances of serious prosecutorial misconduct that have raised grave questions about wrongful convictions,” Thompson said in one press release during the campaign.
Jabbar Collins, who was convicted in 1995 of killing a rabbi but was released in 2010 amid allegations of misconduct by Michael Vecchione, filed a $150 million federal suit against the prosecutor, 63, and Hynes, 78. The case is still pending.
The elder Vecchione has told The Post he couldn’t speak specifically about the Collins case because of the litigation, but said he never crossed the line into prosecutorial misconduct.