Dunmore man arrested and jailed last week for allegedly extorting money from the company that cleaned pigeon droppings from the Lackawanna County Courthouse has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Florida with racketeering, money laundering and fraud.


In a 42-count indictment that also names a man identified by prosecutors as a member of the Gambino crime family, prosecutors say Philip Forgione, 65, 1315 N. Webster Ave., and others participated in a scam that bilked at least $7 million from ADT Security.

The Florida indictment, filed last week and unsealed Thursday, put an end to Mr. Forgione’s fight for release from prison while awaiting trial in Scranton.

A detainer has been filed that would send him back to southern Florida should he be released from Lackawanna County Prison. He was jailed last week after being charged with conspiracy, money laundering, and aiding and abetting interference with commerce by threats or violence.

For now, though, Mr. Forgione is a patient at Mercy Hospital. He was admitted Tuesday night for a heart condition, just hours after he told U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Blewitt he could no longer take his heart medication because his blood pressure had dropped significantly.

His attorney, Paul Walker, had no further information on his condition Thursday.

The Florida indictment involves numerous allegations of fraud by Vincent Artuso, who prosecutors say is a member of the Gambino crime family, and William Larry Horton, identified in court paperwork as a vice president of planning and development at ADT Security Services Inc.

According to the indictment, Mr. Horton sold “several properties owned by ADT across the country — including one in Lancaster County — for “far below market value” to Mr. Artuso, Mr. Forgione and others named in court papers. They then leased the properties back to ADT “at a cost substantially above fair market value,” the indictment says.

“The monthly lease payments made by ADT were made to limited liability companies formed by the defendants for the purpose of concealing their ownership interests, including Horton’s,” the indictment reads. “In this way, the defendants defrauded ADT of at least $7 million in a period of five years.”

Prosecutors say the money to buy the properties was obtained through another scam Mr. Artuso and others named in the indictment were involved in, though Mr. Forgione was not a participant. This scam, the indictment says, involved a company that sold magazine subscriptions over the phone and used the credit card information they obtained to make unauthorized charges.

Mr. Artuso is accused of using “his position and reputation as an organized crime member to unlawfully influence and intimidate (people) doing business” with them.

Mentioned in the indictment was CAE Enterprises Inc., a business investigators say Mr. Forgione owned and operated from his home.

That business also came up in the local indictment. Mr. Forgione and Charles Costanzo, the county’s former workers’ compensation fund administrator, are accused of extorting more than $300,000 from Alicon Environmental Inc., which was paid $1.8 million by the county for removing 20 tons of pigeon dung.

From Dec. 14, 2004 to April 4, 2006, Alicon paid Mr. Forgione $94,550, which he deposited into a CAE Enterprises bank account, according to the indictment.

Earlier this week, Mr. Forgione was indicted on federal firearms violations after investigators with the Lackawanna County district attorney’s office searched his North Webster Avenue home and found three guns in the attic.

Mr. Forgione is a convicted felon, and by law cannot possess a gun.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Lorna Graham said Thursday the federal charges in Scranton will be handled before Mr. Forgione is returned to Florida to face the charges there.

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