That’s Just Sic

David Chase has a lot to answer for:

He wrote them threatening letters, telling them to stuff a paper bag with $10,000 worth of twenties and fifties and drop it off in a secluded area of Clove Lakes Park.

If they didn’t do as he said, their jewelry stores would be damaged and their families would face the consequences, he wrote.

He signed the letters, “Cosa Nostra.”

The extortionist, police say, was not some mobster or wannabe tough guy.

Instead, they say he was a teen-ager from Sunnyside. The 15-year-old Sunnyside boy allegedly wrote extortion letters to nine jewelry stores, demanding the stores’ owners leave $10,000 in a brown paper bag in Clove Lakes Park or face the consequences, according to authorities. His name is being withheld because of his age.

One letter, sent to Buono Jewelers on Hylan Boulevard in Grasmere last Friday, instructed the owner to drop the cash behind “a rowboat half buried verticaly (sic) opposite the entrance to the lake club” at 9:30 a.m. Sunday.

“If Law Enforcement is notified or intervines (sic) with the exchange you can be sure that not just your store will be harmed but also your family,” the teen allegedly wrote. “If you wish that no damage or harm come to your store or family you will pay.”

But when he showed up at the park, the teen found a paper bag filled with nothing but paper — and the police, waiting for him, according to law enforcement sources.

“I thought it was a joke, and I just handed it to the Police Department,” said the owner of Buono, who spoke on condition of anonymity, saying that he has been robbed in the past and doesn’t want to speak publicly.

The letter arrived in the mail Friday, he said. ‘The letter came, ‘To the owner.’ It wasn’t addressed to anybody,” he said. “The wording was all misspelled.”