The former partner of murdered parole officer Brian Rooney expressed outrage Tuesday at the Parole Board’s decision to free the man who set up the slaying 35 years ago.
“I think it’s despicable and it’s heartbreaking,” Alan Reiter, 74, told The Post.
“I can’t imagine his assigned parole officer wanting to even supervise him.”
Reiter also recalled the poignant sight of Rooney’s 18-month-old son, Thomas, amid the scores of law enforcement and elected officials who filled Rooney’s Long Island home the day after he was killed.
“I remember him going from room to room and you could see he was looking for his father,” Reiter said.
Another former parole officer, John Buglione, said that “Brian always talked about his son.”
“He was a good father. He was a good friend. I loved the guy,” he said.
“Brian’s murder is personal. It’s still kind of raw. For a long time I couldn’t even talk about it without crying.”
Rooney, 34, was gunned down in South Jamaica on Oct. 10, 1985, on the orders of infamous drug lord Lorenzo “Fat Cat” Nichols as revenge for Rooney having sent him back to prison for getting busted while on parole.
An associate of Nichols, Perry Bellamy, lured Rooney to the scene near Baisley Pond Park by claiming to have information about one of his cases.
Bellamy — who netted $5,000 in blood money — was later convicted of murder and sentenced to 15 years to life.
Bellamy, now 58, was repeatedly denied release until the Parole Board recently reversed those rulings and authorized his release as early as Sept. 30.
Reiter, who retired as a bureau chief in 2005, said he and Rooney were the only parole officers who covered the 106th Precinct in southern central Queens during the early 1980s.
“We developed a not only very close professional relationship, but also a friendship,” he said.
“Brian was one of the kindest people I ever knew.”
Reiter said Rooney often “reached into his pocket and deposited money into the commissary [accounts] of parolees who he sent to prison.”
In addition, Rooney was an amateur magician with a “wonderful sense of humor,” Reiter said.
“Oftentimes, parolees would report with family members and when there were kids there, he would take out his little magic kit and do sleight of hand,” he said.
“He was really good at it.”
Reiter said their partnership only ended because he was promoted and transferred to Manhattan in June of 1985 — just four months before the slaying — which prompted Rooney to request and receive a transfer to Queens’ 103rd Precinct.
The fateful move led to Rooney being assigned to supervise Nichols — and eventually to his murder, for which Reiter said he’s long blamed himself.
“I have, and I have for many years,” he said in a voice thick with emotion.
“We have to live with things that happened and that what we see … Other than my parents’ deaths, Brian’s murder was the worst thing that happened in my life.”
Additional reporting by Carl Campanile