Feds want to seize jailed Colombo mobster's settlement money for restitution

Feds want to seize jailed Colombo mobster's settlement money for restitution

  April 15, 2020    Dapper_Don

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At least mobster Thomas “Tommy Shots” Gioeli still has his health.

Brooklyn federal prosecutors want Gioeli — who collected a $250,000 slip-and-windfall settlement for a 2013 prison ping-pong fall that fractured his since-healed kneecap — to forfeit $182,000 for restitution.

The money would go to victims of crimes committed by the one-time Colombo family street boss and his crew back in the ’90s.

“The only significant asset owned by the defendant that the government has been able to locate is the settlement funds,” prosecutors wrote in their 10-page Brooklyn Federal Court filing. “The fact that the settlement funds are the defendant’s only significant asset is confirmed by the defendant’s own statements . . . concerning his lack of income and status.”

Gioeli, 67, recovered from his injuries and is serving an 18½-year sentence at the federal prison in Danbury, Conn. He was convicted of conspiring to kill supporters of then-Colombo boss Vittorio "Little Vic" Orena during a bloody war for control of the crime family.

The court filing comes five months after Brooklyn Federal Judge Brian Cogan ruled that Gioeli’s settlement money should go to compensate a Chemical Bank branch and a business named Furs by Mina. He was ordered to pay the bank roughly $200,000 and the fur store an additional $150,000.

The gangster’s attorney, Jennifer Louis-Jeune, declined comment.

Gioeli filed a $10 million lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Prisons following the August 2013 table tennis tumble after skidding in a puddle near the showers in the Metropolitan Detention Center. The inmate was hospitalized for 30 days and eventually settled for $250,000.

The money was placed in an interest-bearing account under the supervision of a federal judge pending resolution of the case.

The feds say they are turning to Gioeli’s settlement money after “due diligence” found no trace of his ill-gotten gains from years past.

“The only inference to be drawn from the financial investigator’s review is that the proceeds have been dissipated by either the defendant or his co-defendants,” prosecutors wrote. 

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-slip-and-fall-ping-pong-mobster-restitution-20200415-yekdqaqfdbbmdnhdk7xyjvqvty-story.html