Feds bust alleged gambling ring in Rochester

Federal agents have charged seven local men with running a gambling operation that took bets on sporting events and hosted illegal poker games in an office suite in the city of Rochester.

According to a criminal complaint, federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies launched an investigation in October 2020 which revealed that the defendants were conspiring to operate illegal poker games in a suite at 565 Blossom Road and to run an illegal sports betting operation through a website.

Louis P. Ferrari II and Dominic Sprague, both residents of the town of Greece, and Tommaso Sessa of Spencerport are charged with operating an illegal gambling operation.

Anthony Amato, Joseph Lomardo, Joseph Boscarino, and James Cilvetti are charged with transmission of wagering information, along with Ferrari and Sprague.

All seven of the defendants are charged with conspiracy for their participation in the operation. Ferrari is also charged with money laundering.

Also charged in a separate complaint in connection with the case is former New York State Trooper Thomas Loewke, according to a spokesperson for the United States Attorney's Office. Loewke was charged with obstruction after allegedly tipping off a target of the investigation. A criminal complaint alleges that Loewke was illegally gambling on sports through the sport700.com website.

In-person sports wagering at licensed casinos has been legal in New York since 2019, and in 2022, mobile sports wagering through certain licensed platforms became legal in the state. However, unlicensed bookmaking, whether in person or online, has been and remains illegal in the State of New York.

Poker games and sports gambling

The criminal complaint details a seven-month investigation that involved undercover officers posing as gamblers, wiretaps of phones, and subpoenas of financial records that showed how the operation worked.

The complaint alleges that Ferrari and Sprague co-owned the illegal gambling operation at 565 Blossom Road, which hosted poker games. Sessa is accused of managing the day-to-day operations at the location.

Ferrari also operated an illegal sports betting book through a website called sport700.com. Ferrari managed individual bettors and also oversaw sub-agents who had their own books of individual bettors. Lombardo and Boscarino are accused of being sub-agents under Ferrari through the website.

Amato was allegedly the administrator of the website and assisted Ferrari and others in creating accounts, usernames, and passwords. Amato also managed individual bettors and oversaw sub-agents, authorities say.

Investigators say that Sprague would collect cash payments of gambling losses from bettors and pay gambling winnings to bettors from his business, a pawn shop located on Stone Road in Greece.

Civiletti was an employee of the pawn shop. While working at the pawn shop, he collected payments of gambling losses from people on behalf of Ferrari and Sprague, the complaint alleges.

Gambling proceeds laundered through business

The complaint says that Ferrari collected cash payments of gambling losses from players at his excavating business on Steel Street in the City of Rochester and then laundered the illegal proceeds through the business.

"Banking records confirm that Ferrari Excavating did not generate a lot of cash as revenue," the complaint says. "Based on Ferrari Excavating’s payroll records and the information provided by the employees, it appears that $765,908 was paid to employees in cash, off-the-books from April 2019 through January 2021. Ferrari Excavating generated cash revenue of only $97,232.36 during that same time. "

Eavesdropping warrants captured calls and text messages between Ferrari and five of his co-defendants discussing details of the gambling operation. In one call, Ferrari tells Sprague he'd just gone to the home of a gambling client to collect money and physically assaulted him. According to a transcript of the call, Ferrari said he was concerned because the man's wife had called the police.

Police raid interrupted poker game in progress

Investigators raided the Blossom Road location in April 2021 and interrupted an ongoing illegal card game. Among the documents discovered were gambling ledgers and timestamped website printouts of online gambling player account activities.

Investigators got a warrant to access the betting website and discovered that Amato first set up the account in April 2016. According to court records, Amato had 128 sub-agent accounts operating underneath his account. Collectively, these sub-agents managed 1,789 individual bettors. Throughout the lifetime of the account, from April 2016 to January 2021, Amato’s winnings totaled $8,945,629, authorities said.

The criminal complaint was filed last week before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Pedersen.

Contact reporter Sean Lahman at slahman@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @seanlahman.

Lou Ferrari is a connected guy.

Well, there ya go. Then there is a bit of action up that way.

The Rochester family doesnt exist anymore. But the criminals with italian surnames are still here.

Yes, we already know that Furio. Thats been established. But no doubt, as Giacomo says, some Italian guys currently operating in Rochester have "mob ties." Maybe to other crews and cities, but I'm sure some are "connected."

For me the fact that is useless to recreat the Rochester family,part of the criminals alligned with other mob families.

a serious question then?

which if any family are these guys connected to? i wont argue either way, unless totally ridiculous of course. the consensus, one i agree with is that there is NO rochester family that is for certain. soooooo...what other options do we have?

1. buffalo
2. an ontario based mafia group I.E. luppino/violi (buffalo), 'ndrangheta in toronto??
3. a ny city based 5 family.

i do not think there are any other options and even the ontario choice is a stretch.

Buffalo is the most probable answer. Louis Ferrari was involved in another gambling bust but was never charged. One of those invovled was a long time associate.

I don't understand why, back in the day and before its extinction, The Rochester Family was not asborbed by Buffalo.

Merging with another Family was the best way for these "small" families to survive but it never happen.

Rochester was Buffalo and tried breaking away. They never gained recognition of a independent family even though they acted as one.

i have been reading up on the rochester group, family? doesnt matter, lately. not to prove its existence, as it does not exist say in the form it did under russotti in the late 70's early 80's. i think by now its accepted that no family or crew exists in rochester, but yet crimes involving italians continue and really never ceased in monroe cty. some on here have claimed that some of those arrested in ferrari gambling bust are 'connected.' which could be totally true, but again connected to who or which crew or family. really there is but a few choices. historically valenti had support from both buffalo and pittsburgh. well that was over 50 yrs ago and one thing is certain, anyone or group in the rochester area is not connected to and that is the pittsburgh family for the simple reason it no longer exists. buffalo then? possible despite the many wars in rochester none seemed to be backed by any admin out of buffalo. i assume this was because the buffalo crime family around same time was having leadership issues and disputes themselves. the 1984 recording at palma boys involving fat tony, john tronolone and joe pieri concerning who was to become new boss of buffalo is interesting. in it fat tony asks one of the attendees, cant remember who to get the colombo family to let those in buffalo know that joe todaro sr. was now boss. i doubt this is now the case, but it shows maybe for the last time how the commission functioned in cases like this. it shows as well the insular nature of the commission and how certain families were tasked with responsibility for other smaller families or crews. in this case buffalo and cleveland reported to the genovese family through fat tony salerno. i will assume then that the responsibility for rochester fell to buffalo? there is no mention of rochester in the transcript and also i can find no evidence of a similar sitdown happening to resolve the many wars in rochester. that is not to say they didnt happen i just cant find any info...but i digress.

the only other option for a connection to new york is the bonannos. some members of old rochester group were said to switch to the bonannos later in life i.e. thomas marotta, loren piccarreto. the bonannos appear also to have re started an alliance with the buffalo family and its ontario based members. there was also the case of the civitello crew out of schenectady running coke with an associate of the bonannos richard sinde. these arent rock solid but i would put my money on anything or anyone operating out of monroe cty as being with the buffalo-bonanno group.

eating some dinner more on ferrari later...

.....ferrari was the leader of this gambling ring according to the indictment along with dominic sprague. the ring took in around $10 mill in total bets between 2016-2021. thats alot of bets for sure but i dont think ferrari could be considered the top of this network. ferrari likely is an associate working for a more senior made guy. back then to the above topic...who could that person or persons be???

No doubt that in a City as big as Rochester there's still a few "connected" guys operating. And most likely, they'd be connected to whatever's left of the Buffalo Family, or indirectly tied up with one of the Five New York City crews.