Here's another:
LAST MEMBER OF NUMBERS RING SENTENCED TO 15 MONTHS IN PRISON
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh, Pa., by Torsten Ove
November 21, 2003
Adolph “Junior” Williams’ gray-haired gambling gang, once a substantial source of income for the Pittsburgh Mafia, is officially out of business with the sentencing yesterday of Eugene Williams, the last ring member awaiting is fate. U.S. District Judge Terrence McVerry gave Williams, 52, of Carnegie, a year and three months in prison, where he joins his brother Adolph, 69, and two of their sisters, Joanne Williams, 58, and Antoinette DePofi, 62. Another sister, Phyllis Caliguiri, 71, is serving probation.
Eugene Williams’ sentence ends a major investigation by the Internal Revenue Service, state police and FBI into a multimillion-dollar enterprise that not even prison could slow down. When the crew first went to jail in the mid-1990s, Adolph Williams maintained control of the operation from behind bars. The ring netted about $2.50 million a year selling numbers based on the Pennsylvania Lottery. “A witness in the current case, Gabe Fontana, testified that Junior Williams continued to run the business throughout the 1995-96 federal judicial process of indictment, hearings, appeals and pleas and imprisonment,” wrote IRS agent Jean L. Seneway in an investigative report. “In spite of all the penalties he has faced, he continues in arrogant defiance of state and federal laws against running an illegal numbers business.” In addition to the Williams family, more than a dozen other members of the ring have been sentenced.
Ringleader Adolph Williams, of Scott, pleaded guilty in March and was sentenced in July to two years at the federal prison in Morgantown, W.Va. That sentence was tacked onto another two-year term for violating the terms of his 1996 release from prison, where he’d been sent after pleading guilty to running the same gambling enterprise. The government has seized $4 million in cash and all of the assets Adolph Williams bought with his gambling money in what ranks as one of the largest forfeitures here in recent years. The assets include a house owned by one of his daughters; condominiums at Seven Springs Resort; two boars; a hunting camp in Tionesta, Forest County; an apartment in Miama; a hotel; two horse trailers; a Rolex watch; and valuable coins.
Investigators said the Williams family has apparently been a freelance operation in recent years, but it was once a money pipeline for La Cosa Nostra. All three Williams brothers were identified by the now-defunct Pennsylvania Crime Commission as associates of the Pittsburgh mob controlled by Michael Genovese of West Deer. The Williams brothers operated a sports and numbers operation in the Hill District, East End and McKees Rocks dating to the mid-1970s. Eugene Williams also has an arrest record for distributing heroin and possession of marijuana.
According to the crime commission, the family took over the numbers racket controlled by the late Tony Grosso, a powerful independent operator who ran the largest numbers bank in Pittsburgh and employed many black numbers writers in the Hill District. Unlike most gambling bosses, Grosso did not pay tribute to the Mafia. When he went to prison in 1986, the mob seized the opportunity to take over his old territory.
The Williams brothers moved in. The family operated two businesses at that time, Guglielmo Jewelry Store in the Clark Building, Downtown, and Sugar’s Deli and Produce on Fifth Avenue. Adolph Williams owned the deli business, and the building itself was owned by the late Antonio Ripepi, a longtime La Cosa Nostra member, authorities said. The Williams family used the deli to collect and sort bets. At one time, Salvatore Williams, another brother, also owned more than 40 properties in the Hill District, according to the crime commission.
The current case began with Fontana, who had worked for Adolph Williams in the mid-1990s and cooperated as the result of a plea deal. With information from Fontana and other witnesses, federal agents secured wiretaps on Adolph Williams’ phone and that of DePofi, and on her fax line, in 2000 and 2001. The taps revealed the structure of the enterprise. Once agents had enough evidence, they executed search warrants on Jan. 29, 2001, at Williams’ house and the homes of DePofi, Joanne Williams and Adolph Williams’ daughter, Carla Williams. Authorities also searched EZ Tanning and nails, Carla’s business. Records found in those searches showed that the ring accepted $125,000 a week in wagers from people betting on the state lottery.
