Guilty plea after guilty plea in Mastronardo gambling case


JULIE SHAW, Daily News Staff Writer
January 29, 2014

IN 2010, the FBI and Montgomery County authorities dug up a whopping $1.1 million stuffed in PVC pipes under the yard of Joseph "Joe Vito" Mastronardo Jr. and his wife, Joanna, daughter of the late Mayor Frank Rizzo, at their sprawling manor in the Meadowbrook section of Abington Township.

Mastronardo, known as the "Gentleman Gambler," was accused of heading an illegal multimillion-dollar sports-betting business with his brother, John.

His son, Joseph F. "Joey" Mastronardo, also took part in the bookmaking scheme, authorities said. The four Mastronardos and 12 others were arrested by the feds in August 2012 following an indictment, and were released on bail.

But instead of a major trial, which had been scheduled for Monday, this case is turning into a barrage of guilty pleas.

As of yesterday, four of sixteen defendants have pleaded. Another defendant is slated to plead today and two more tomorrow.

And on Friday, "Joe Vito" Mastronardo, 63, and his son, Joey, 32, are expected to plead guilty before U.S. District Judge Jan DuBois.

All of the defendants except Joanna Mastronardo were charged with racketeering conspiracy and illegal gambling.

Dennis Cogan, attorney for John Mastronardo, said in an email yesterday: "Everyone [who is charged with racketeering conspiracy and illegal gambling] is pleading guilty as it is a global deal."

John Mastronardo is slated for a plea hearing Monday, but it will be postponed, Cogan added.

Yesterday, Patrick Tronoski, 49, of Blue Bell, who was a bookmaker from 2007 to 2010 in what prosecutors have called the "Mastronardo Bookmaking Organization," pleaded guilty to the two counts of racketeering conspiracy and illegal gambling.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Bologna said in court that Tronoski's plea was part of a "global plea." That is, it's dependent on all the other co-defendants who are similarly charged entering guilty pleas and having those pleas be accepted by the judge. As part of Tronoski's plea agreement, the government will recommend a sentence of no more than 15 months in prison.

Tronoski, owner of Whitpain Tavern in Blue Bell, who has five children and a stepdaughter, declined comment afterward. His attorney, Francis Recchuiti, said his client was "small potatoes" in the Mastronardo bookmaking business and said Tronoski's restaurant had nothing to do with the gambling operation.

On Friday, Eric Woehlcke, described as "a leader in the bookmaking organization," pleaded guilty to the same two counts. His attorney, Anthony Petrone, said yesterday that the feds had dismissed money laundering and another charge against his client.

Bologna said after yesterday's hearing that two other defendants, whom he did not have permission to name, have also pleaded guilty and have agreed to serve as cooperating witnesses.

Joanna Mastronardo, daughter of the late mayor and police commissioner, is accused of making bank deposits in amounts less than $10,000 to evade reporting requirements. Her attorney, William J. Brennan, said yesterday: "At this point, she is not expected to plead guilty."

Cogan has emphasized that there are no allegations of violence or mob connections in this case.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/201401...bling_case.html

The feds really are bored. State governments run gambling operations in so many shapes and sizes that one can't possibly keep up with them all. But this is the end of the world.

Is Mastronardo a made guy in the Philly mob?

No.

But he was Frank Rizzo's son in law. Rizzo was the former chief of police in philly and 2 term mayor.

When he was alive i always said Rizzo was the real boss of South Philly. Not too many people got away with crossing him. Both feared and loved. The press used to compare the philly cops under Rizzo to the Gestapo and Nazi S.S. They supposedly had a real brutal reputation.

January 31, 2014

Guilty plea for Rizzo kin in illegal gambling case


Jeremy Roebuck
Inquirer Staff Writer

Joseph Vito Mastronardo Jr., the high-end bookmaker and son-in-law of late Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo who authorities say once hid more than $1 million in PVC pipes under the garden of his Montgomery County home, pleaded guilty Friday to illegal gambling and money laundering charges.

His plea in federal court comes as part of a deal with 15 of his codefendants who also agreed to admit their roles in his international, multimillion-dollar sports betting operation with tendrils stretching from the Philadelphia suburbs to Florida and Costa Rica. Together, they are also expected to forfeit more than $3.6 million in assets tied to their proceeds.

Mastronardo, 63 and visibly ailing from the after effects of cancer and a stroke last year, answered questions from U.S. District Judge Jan E. DuBois in a throaty rasp during his hearing Friday.

By his side, stood his 32-year-old son, Joseph "Joey" Mastronardo, who also pleaded guilty to four counts stemming from the indictment.

The elder Mastronardo's brother, John, is expected to enter his own guilty plea next week. Prosecutors agreed to drop their case against Joanna Mastronardo, Joseph Mastronardo Jr.'s wife and Rizzo's daughter, as part of the plea deal.

She was charged with depositing gambling proceeds in the family's bank accounts in small bundles, less than $10,000 each, to avoid federal reporting rules.

None of the Mastronardos would comment Friday. But Christopher Warren, lawyer for Joseph "Joey" Mastronardo, said they were glad to see an end to the case.

"The entire Mastronardo family is looking forward to putting this behind them and moving on with their lives," he said.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20140201_Guilty_plea_for_Rizzo_kin_in_illegal_gambling_case.html

What kind of time are they looking at?

if Mastronardo was made he'd be in prison already. they kept their operation as far as possible from local wiseguys. I doubt they were even taxed.

he had more of a white collar clientele.

time-wise I dunno, but I guess the usual smack on the wrist.
They law got 3 mil., that's what they were really after.

so the head of this thing is only gonna get 3 yrs. he does have terminal cancer but this group makes uncle joe and his guys look like peons. they called uncle joes case gambling but I really don't remember anything about placing bets it was them joker poker machines and bent finger lou never talked about bets, its weird wheres all the shaking down bookies in sp. guy mousie got 16 yrs for joker poker.when philly open up them casino's they had to let people no theres no compertistion.

The difference is these guys are non violent bookmakers who catered to a wealthy clientele. There were no "collectors" no shakedowns, no takeovers, nothing like that. It probably also helps that they are not in the mafia

"When he was alive i always said Rizzo was the real boss of South Philly. Not too many people got away with crossing him. Both feared and loved"

I heard that he made Attila the Hun look like a fa***t.

Rizzo was, how do we say, unhappy with anyone who wasn't caucasian. If you do a youtube search of him, you will find him threatening a news reporter. Rizzo is in his 70s by then.

My family said that Rizzo always kept the city clean, with the exception of the LCN. But, Rizzo holds the record at one time for leaving the city office with the largest deficit to his successor; over $250 million. In the late 70s that would be like $800 million today. But the mayor after that dropped a bomb on the city, IN LITERAL TERMS (Wilson Goode - See MOVE)

Bottom line, these guys are gonna get all the help they can get because of Rizzo and the way he treated cops and how much love everyone has for him around these parts. AND because none of them were ever convicted with Bruno/Scarfo/stanfa/merlino. Like the old saying, hang around with shit long enough, you start to smell like it.

I sometimes get caught up in the "POWER" of LCN when reading about it. I just watched the Bonanno movie on youtube the other day. From that, you might think he was fucking Ghandi, the way he "solved" the worlds problems. Come on, this is 2013, not 1950, or even 1980.

Point is, SCARFO is/was a bad motherfucker. People who knew/know him personally will tell you he would have you killed for looking at him the wrong way. But, there were certain people even he wouldn't fuck with at the peak of his career. Rizzo and anyone associated with him was definitely one of them. NO DOUBT.

There are plenty of people in the Philly LCN territory who operate in an illegal capacity but will never get on LCN radar. It's too easy to be sneaky with websites, and much too easy to get caught. But, still people will try to maintain a small book, loanshark operation, etc.,

Anyone who broadcasts they are LCN is a fucking MORON and deserves to get caught. You might as well say you are with the NYPD, or the Pagans, or MS-13, or any other group. One for all, all for one.

Fuck that. Live for yourself, your spouse and your real family. There are very few gang members who will keep you warm at night or raise your kid for you the right way when you go to jail. Those days are over.

I really don't understand how this guy is getting three years. That book that was busted north of Dallas last year was around 5 Billion and the head guy got a year and a day in the federal pin. Baffled by this.

this guy has a lot of convictions the feds have to take that into the guidelines but the global plea knocks you down a lot. they got indicted like 10 yrs ago by the feds.

SPOT ON PMAC; guidelines.
I think it's so funny when someone who takes action spouts about it being a "gentelmen's" game and "honorable". They think they're gonna get a slap on the wrist. 6 months in our local jails could turn their world upside down. Especially if they use words like gentleman, and honor when committing, what the FEDS, think is a crime.

Me? I don't give a shit. My 20s and part of my 30s in the 80s and 90s revolved around anything to rev us up for the bars in philly until they closed then down to the casinos Until we ran out of money. Normally, if we hit in AC, it was considered borrowed, and would be returned momentarily. ahahahaha

Ex-Philly mayor's daughter spared in gambling case




MARYCLAIRE DALE, The Associated Press
February 4, 2014, 6:00 PM

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - The daughter of a former Philadelphia mayor is likely to go free in the latest gambling prosecution of her husband, who ran a huge bookmaking operation that took high-dollar sports bets online or through offshore call centers.

Joanna Mastronardo, daughter of the late Mayor Frank L. Rizzo, will have a banking charge dropped if more than a dozen other defendants plead guilty to racketeering and illegal gambling charges, a judge confirmed Tuesday.

Her husband, Joseph "Joe Vito" Mastronardo Sr., and 31-year-old son, Joseph F. "Joey" Mastronardo, pleaded guilty to those charges and money laundering on Friday. U.S. District Judge Jan DuBois pledged Tuesday to drop her case after they are sentenced. No sentencing dates have been set.

A 2012 raid of Joseph and Joanna Mastronardo's sprawling estate in the Philadelphia suburb of Abington turned up $1.1 million in cash in the yard, and more money hidden inside.

Joanna Mastronardo's husband, who is in his 60s and has recently battled cancer and a stroke, could face about three years in prison, while prosecutors will recommend her son serve no more than 15 months.

"It was probably bittersweet for my client," Joanna Mastronardo's lawyer, William J. Brennan, said Tuesday of the "global plea agreement." Under the agreement, the first of its kind in eastern Pennsylvania, the deal would be undone if any of the defendants back out.

"We are certainly pleased that her case will likely be dismissed, but she faces the prospect of her only son and husband facing prison. She's very concerned and troubled by that," Brennan said.

Joseph Mastronardo and his brother, John, have been convicted twice before of gambling-related charges - once in federal court, with their father, in the 1980s, and again in suburban Montgomery County in 2006. Joseph Mastronardo was convicted of racketeering in the first case, though acquitted of other counts.

"He knew 30 years ago that this was illegal, and he knows today," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Bologna said Tuesday.

Mastronardo's operation laundered money in a variety of ways, through check cashing agencies, private bank accounts and wiring money overseas, he said. The organization took in as much as $10 million a year and perhaps more, officials said.

"Not only did they launder enormous sums of money, they laundered it in a variety of different ways," Bologna said.

Co-defendant Kenneth Cohen, a retired financial broker, pleaded guilty to the racketeering and illegal gambling charges Tuesday, becoming the latest person to do so. His lawyer, Anthony Petrone, declined comment.

John Mastronardo, who was in court, said he intended to plead guilty at a hearing Thursday. The former All-American football player at Villanova University would face a recommended sentence of nine months in prison, according to defense lawyer Dennis Cogan. He said his client was not a leader in the organization.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20140204_ap_237e2589116044f6ae33a240766236cf.html

My old bosses shop is in willow grove not far from where their house is in Abington. Right outside of philly. Very nice homes over.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12, 2014

Guilty Pleas And $3.7 Million In Forfietures For Mastronardo Gambling Ring
By George Anastasia
For Bigtrial.net

First came the guilty pleas.

Now comes the cash.

A federal judge yesterday entered a preliminary forfeiture order that will have gentlemen gambler Joe Vito Mastronardo forking over $3 million seized by authorities during an investigation that targeted his international bookmaking operation. More than $1.2 million was found stashed in PVC pipes that had been buried in the backyard of his posh Italianate mini-mansion in the Meadowbrook section of Abington Township.

The government will get an additional $700,00 from co-defendants in the case, including Mastronardo's brother John. The authorities also get to keep Joe Vito's 2001 Cadillac DeVille and a 2009 Nissan Altima used by another key figure in the bookmaking operation, according to the preliminary court order signed by U.S. District Court Judge Jan DuBois.

The forfeitures come in the wake of a global guilty plea entered by Mastronardo and 12 co-defendants in January. As part of that plea deal, prosecutors have agreed to drop a money-laundering charge against Joanna Mastronardo, Joe Vito's wife. She was the only defendant not charged with racketeering.

Joanna Mastronardo is the only daughter of the late Frank L. Rizzo, the former law-and-order Mayor and Police Commissioner of Philadelphia. Joe Vito was Rizzo's son-in-law. The Mastronardo's only child, a son named Joe, was Rizzo's only grandchild. Joe Mastronardo, 31, is a co-defendant in the case and is awaiting sentencing.



Sentencing hearings are not expected until sometime this summer. Based on the plea agreements, Joe Vito faces the stiffest sentence, three years in prison, but his failing health could be a factor when the 63-year-old lifetime gambler appears before Judge DuBois.

"This went beyond a typical bookmaking operation," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Bologna, the lead prosecutor in the case. Bologna said the Mastronardo brothers and several other defendants were charged for a similar operation in Montgomery County court in 2006. In that case, the Mastronardo's forfeited over $2 million that had been seized while pleading guilty to minor gambling offenses.

Everyone involved in that case along with associates who were not charged but were aware of what had happened, "went back and did the exact same thing," said Bologna.That, the prosecutor said showed "a total lack of respect for law enforcement and the judicial system."

Bologna is expected to make those same arguments when sentencing hearings are held for the defendants. While the prosecutor is expected to ask for jail time for the major figures in the indictment, defense attorneys, as they have already done in pre-trial motions and arguments, are expected to argue that the charges were overblown and to ask for leniency. The defense contends that the government took a gambling case and turned it into a racketeering enterprise in order to have the kind of leverage it needed to win guilty pleas and forfeiture concessions.

"This is a gambling case that the government is using to supplement its income," said Christopher Warren, the lawyer for Joe Mastronardo, the son of Joe Vito and Joanna.

The forfeited assets will be split between the federal government and Montgomery County. The County DA's office initiated the investigation, but later turned its evidence over to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

A federal indictment unsealed in August 2012 alleged that Joe Vito headed a gambling operation that had hundreds of high end bettors who would wager $10,000 to $20,000 on a single game. Payoffs of wins and collections for losses were usually measured in six figures, authorities charged.

The indictment tracked wire transfers of more than $3.2 million to financial institutions in Sweden, Malta, Antiqua and Portugal, but also made references to weekly meetings at the Cedar Brook Country Club and the Century House Restaurant in Hatfield where bookmakers and gamblers would

exchange cash.

Throughout his gambling career, Mastronardo has had a reputation for catering to a high end clientele. He has never been accused to engaging in violence and despite the huge sums of money he was generating, he was apparently able to avoid any dealings with organized crime figures.

Bologna said there was nothing in the current case to indicate mob involvement.

Ironically, the Mastronardo case was winding its way through federal court at the same time mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi and a half dozen co-defendants were being tried on gambling and racketeering charges linked to bookmaking and video poker machines.

Ligambi was acquitted of four counts and the government dropped three others after two juries hung on those charges. Two other defendants were acquitted and four were convicted. Testimony and evidence made references to gambling debts of $500 to $5,000 and loanshark extortion gambits of $25,000.

The Mastronardo indictment detailed bets of as high as $50,000 on a single game.

Both cases, said Warren, who represented two of Ligambi's co-defendants, were gambling cases dressed up as something else by authorities.

"I said this before," Warren said in a phone conversation this afternoon. "You have two guys on a street corner in South Philadelphia taking bets and the government says it's racketeering. When (former governor) Ed Rendell wants to do it to generate revenue for the state, it's called a good idea."

The state and federal authorities will share in the windfall from the forfeitures in the Mastronardo case, although just how the split will occur hasn't been formally announced. Here, based on the prelminary forfeiture order, are the primary sources of the estimated $3.7 million now in the government's coffers:

There was $180,810 in cash found in a safe in Mastronardo's home in the 1600 block of Stocton Road during a raid by Montgomery County authorities on March 30, 2010. At the same time cash amounts of $182, $2,979 and $3,000 were found in the house. In addition, $1,120,300 was found "in sealed shrunk plastic bags stored inside a PVC cleanout drain" buried in the yard of the home. Another $1,720,303 was taken from six Mastronardo bank accounts that were frozen by court order at the time of the raid.

Authorities also seized $395,000 in three safety deposit boxes owned by Harry Murray, a co-defendant who has pleaded guilty. And they found another $198,990 in the home of John Mastronardo on Devonshire Court in Blue Bell.

Under the plea agreement, John Mastronardo, 58, a former standout football player at Villanova University, faces up to nine months in prison, said Bologna. The prosecutor said John Mastronardo will be credited with jail time served in Montgomery County. In a brief interview late last year, John Mastronardo said he was planning to move to Florida and wanted to put the case and the gambling business behind him.

His brother, Joe Vito, may now be out of the business as well. A potential jail sentence and the forfeiture of millions may not be the reason, however.

According to his lawyer and others, Joe Vito has serious health problems. He has long battled cancer. He had a stroke over a year ago that resulted in a feeding tube being inserted in his stomach. Most
recently, said his lawyer John Morris, he was hospitalized in intensive care for three weeks with pneumonia and had a breathing tube inserted in his throat. He is currently in a rehab center.

"He tends to understate his problems," said Morris, referring not to the guilty plea and pending sentencing, but rather to Joe Vito Mastronardo's deteriorating medical condition.

George Anastasia can be reached at George@bigtrial.net.