Genovese mobster and four associates plead guilty to loansharking and gambling scheme

Genovese mobster and four associates plead guilty to loansharking and gambling scheme

  May 02, 2019    Dapper_Don

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A “made” man in the Genovese crime family and four alleged associates copped to a slew of illegal scams that paid “tribute” to the mob, police said Wednesday.
The group was busted by New Jersey police in 2014 as part of an investigation that the ensnared 11 people who cops say were connected to the crime family — including alleged Genovese capo Charles Tuzzo.
New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said Wednesday that the five had hands in running a “massive” loan-sharking operation, an off-shore gambling network and a money-laundering scheme — all of which netted millions of dollars.
In one of the schemes, Domenick Pucillo, 61, of Florham Park, financed an operation that let customers cash fat checks under the table at a popular Portuguese restaurant in Newark, PortuCale Restaurant & Bar.
Owner Abel Rodriguez would charge a 3-percent fee to hide the income from the feds — 1 percent of which he’d pocket, while the other 2 percent was passed along to Pucillo, according to authorities.
Pucillo, the head of Tri-State Check Cashing business, paid a quarter of the profits to Manuel Rodriguez, who would then give a cut to Tuzzo and reputed Genovese soldier Vito Alberti as “tribute,” authorities said.
Pucillo faces 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to first-degree conspiracy to commit money laundering before Superior Court Judge Donald Collester Jr. in Morris County.
Robert Spagnola, 71, of Morganville, and Alberti, 60, of Morristown, will both be recommended for five years in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree criminal usury.
Manuel Rodriguez, 53, of Chatham,  pleaded guilty to second-degree conspiracy to commit money laundering and faces four years.
Coppola, 42, of Union City, admitted to promoting gambling and is expected to serve 180 days of probation.
The status of Abel Rodriguez’s and Tuzzo’s cases was not immediately known.

https://nypost.com/2019/05/01/genovese-made-man-cops-to-loansharking-gambling-scheme/