Man pleads guilty to stealing from WTC workers pension plans
He’ll finally move out of Mom’s house — and into jail.
Serial deadbeat Gerardo Fusella — who last year won the right to summer at his parents’ Jersey Shore vacation home while on bail — pleaded guilty yesterday to bilking more than $1 million from workers at the World Trade Center construction site.
Fusella, 37, admitted he intentionally “understated the amount of work my company did” at the massive lower-Manhattan project in order to embezzle money that should have been deposited in workers’ pension plans.
He’s looknig at a prison term that likely will range from 37 to 46 months when he’s sentenced in August.
“Are you guilty or not guilty?” Brooklyn federal Judge Kiyo Matsumoto asked.
“Guilty,” he replied.
The judge ordered Fusella to pay nearly $2 million — half of it to the workers he cheated and the other half to Uncle Sam.
But Fusella’s lawyer told the judge his client is broke.
Fusella “has no assets at this point,” said lawyer Stuart Rubin.
The judge responded, “We’re not going to tolerate any hiding of assets.”
Fusella, who lives in East Hanover, NJ, has been forced to live at his parents’ house because he was arrested for bouncing a check written for more than $6,000 while out on bail for the WTC scam.
He also was facing a third criminal case after officials say he wrote a bad $5,000 tax check to the New Jersey Division of Taxation.
One of Fusella’s trucking companies, the Fusella Group, was named the worst toll deadbeat in New Jersey, running up $425,780 in tolls and penalties, federal prosecutors said in court documents.
Fusella — who has ties to organized crime and has bragged about them openly — has a long history of arrests and a documented violent streak, according to officials and court records.
Prosecutors say Fusella carried a semiautomatic gun in his vehicle, once threatened to kill a truck driver, the trucker’s wife and their family during a dispute — and on another occasion held a gun to a driver’s head during a disagreement.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/bye_beach_bum_bifFLaWPwewzd6BaLSDlHI
Serial deadbeat Gerardo Fusella — who last year won the right to summer at his parents’ Jersey Shore vacation home while on bail — pleaded guilty yesterday to bilking more than $1 million from workers at the World Trade Center construction site.
Fusella, 37, admitted he intentionally “understated the amount of work my company did” at the massive lower-Manhattan project in order to embezzle money that should have been deposited in workers’ pension plans.
He’s looknig at a prison term that likely will range from 37 to 46 months when he’s sentenced in August.
GERARDO FUSELLA Scammed $1 million.
“Guilty,” he replied.
The judge ordered Fusella to pay nearly $2 million — half of it to the workers he cheated and the other half to Uncle Sam.
But Fusella’s lawyer told the judge his client is broke.
Fusella “has no assets at this point,” said lawyer Stuart Rubin.
The judge responded, “We’re not going to tolerate any hiding of assets.”
Fusella, who lives in East Hanover, NJ, has been forced to live at his parents’ house because he was arrested for bouncing a check written for more than $6,000 while out on bail for the WTC scam.
He also was facing a third criminal case after officials say he wrote a bad $5,000 tax check to the New Jersey Division of Taxation.
One of Fusella’s trucking companies, the Fusella Group, was named the worst toll deadbeat in New Jersey, running up $425,780 in tolls and penalties, federal prosecutors said in court documents.
Fusella — who has ties to organized crime and has bragged about them openly — has a long history of arrests and a documented violent streak, according to officials and court records.
Prosecutors say Fusella carried a semiautomatic gun in his vehicle, once threatened to kill a truck driver, the trucker’s wife and their family during a dispute — and on another occasion held a gun to a driver’s head during a disagreement.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/bye_beach_bum_bifFLaWPwewzd6BaLSDlHI
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