BY MAUREEN SEABERG and TRACY CONNOR DAILY NEWS WRITERS
Charges were dropped yesterday against an ex-cop accused of shooting a reputed mobster at Staten Island's Top Tomato market after all the witnesses - including the victim - clammed up. Retired NYPD Officer Patrick Balsamo won't be going to jail, but whether Gambino henchmen are shopping for a pair of concrete shoes in his size is an open question.
"The families are talking and everything seems to be okay, [but] I'm gonna take a low profile," Balsamo, 49, told neighbor Isabella Busacca, 58.
Asked outside court if he's scared, Balsamo was noncommital. "I don't know," he said.
But he defended his actions.
"Look at my record. I was never arrested before. I was a highly decorated cop," he said. "I have my family to look out for."
Balsamo was arrested in December for allegedly plugging reputed Gambino capo Carmine Sciandra in the gut after accusing Sciandra's brother of groping his 18-year-old daughter, a cashier.
The shooting wasn't caught on video, and Sciandra says he didn't see his assailant, so prosecutors had no choice but to dismiss the charges.
"Whether he didn't see him or doesn't want to say, I don't know," said Bill Smith, a spokesman for the district attorney.
