Judge tosses conviction of NYC man behind bars since hurling grenade at cops in 1980 — here’s why

A Queens man who has spent more than 40 years in prison after hurling a hand grenade at cops was just cleared of the charges by a state appeals court — because the device was a dud.

Supreme Court Judge Gia Morris ruled last week that Michael Bossett, 68 — who was found guilty of five counts of attempted murder of a police officer in 1981 — knew the projectile didn’t pack any explosives and therefore never intended to kill the cops, as prosecutors argued.

Now Bossett is set to go before a state parole board, where he has a chance of being freed.

He is behind bars for a murder on Long Island, too, but now that the grenade charge has been tossed, he’s facing a combined sentence of 37 1/2 years to life instead of 50 years to life — and he’s served nearly 45 years already.

“Even though it has taken almost 45 years for justice to prevail, Mr. Bossett never lost hope that his wrongful conviction would be overturned,” his lawyer, Ron Kuby, told The Post.

“The case is a remnant of the bad old days of policing, where cops and prosecutors would  base cases on a ‘if he didn’t do this, he did something else” philosophy that ruined the lives of so many innocent people,” Kuby added.

But the judge’s ruling Thursday doesn’t mean Bossett is out of the woods.

The accused onetime gangbanger still faces a murder conviction on Long Island — and was linked to the shooting death of another of New York’s Finest just hours before the 1980 grenade fiasco.

Bossett’s brother, 69-year-old Darrell Bossett, is serving a life sentence for the cowardly 1980 shooting death of NYPD veteran Gabriel Vitale, 42, who died nine days after being gunned down while investigating a burglary in Queens.

Although Michael Bossett, who was with his brother at the time of the shooting, wasn’t convicted in the case, Vitale’s family still holds him equally accountable and calls the decision to throw out the attempted-murder grenade charges a fiasco.

“It’s even worse that this criminal will now be unjustly eligible for parole,” said Cyndy Vitale, the slain cop’s daughter, to The Post in a statement. “I grew up with many line-of-duty families, bonding over our shared experience in losing a hero father.

“Now so many of those killers are being set free to spend time with their families, while we were robbed of time with our fathers,” she said. “It’s appalling how the courts and parole system prioritize the rights of criminals over justice for the victims. It’s a complete moral failure.”

Cyndy Vitale and the NYPD Police Benevolent Association are also furious that Bossett’s key witness at the grenade hearing was a childhood friend — and an ex-cop.

“It is absolutely shameful that the court would credit the far-fetched, self-serving tales being spun on the witness stand and ignore the simple fact that this drug-dealing murderer tried to kill New York City police officers,” PBA President Patrick Hendry said in a statement.

“This fight isn’t over,” he said. “We’re going to continue to stand with P.O. Vitale’s family to ensure that both of the individuals connected with his murder stay behind bars for life.”

Michael Bossett, then a reputed gang member, had his Queens apartment raided by cops Dec. 15, 1980.

According to court records, Bossett, who was 24 at the time, jumped out with a gun and hurled the hand grenade at the officers, who opened fire and wounded the career criminal.

In last week’s ruling, Morris said Bossett had previously thrown the inactive grenade at a friend and knew at the time of the incident with cops that it posed no danger.

Bossett still has drug and weapons-possession charges against him in the grenade incident and is serving a sentence of 25 years to life for a separate fatal shooting in Suffolk County.

In that case, he was convicted in February 1983 in the gang-related shooting death of Donald “Rommel” McGirth, whose body was found handcuffed and tossed in the woods along a Long Island highway on Aug. 30, 1980 — a few months before the grenade incident — in what prosecutors described as a drug dispute.

A rep for the Queens District Attorney’s Office said the judge’s ruling in the grenade case only means Bossett is now facing a combined sentence of 37 1/2 years to life, instead of the 50 years to life he had been facing.

But Kuby maintained that his client has more than served his time.

“He has paid for that crime and would have been paroled 20 years ago, but for the wrongful conviction,” he said.