Gotti Son-in-Law Sentenced to 9 Years and $10 Million Forfeiture
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oct/27/01

son-in-law of John J. Gotti was sentenced yesterday to nine years in prison on federal racketeering and tax evasion charges stemming from a police sting operation, and was ordered to forfeit $10 million in illegal profits.

Carmine Agnello, 41, of Old Westbury, N.Y., was also ordered to pay $950,000 in restitution to his crime victims and $150,000 in back taxes under a plea agreement reached in August.

Mr. Agnello, the estranged husband of Victoria Gotti, a fiction writer, was also barred for life from the scrap metal industry at his sentencing in Federal District Court in Brooklyn. According to court papers, Mr. Agnello's Queens scrap yard business earned an estimated $30 million a year.

The sentencing came three months after Mr. Agnello, 41, pleaded guilty to using strong-arm tactics to wrest control of the scrap-metal trade in northern Queens, where he was more than a little unlucky. One of the businesses he threatened was a front company run by the police.

According to the government, Mr. Agnello had no idea of whom he was dealing with when he turned up at the company, Stadium Scrap, two years ago and delivered a message: sell me crushed cars at a bargain rate or else.

The undercover officers resisted, and Mr. Agnello hired a man to burn down their building, the government said. Armed with gas-filled bottles, the man, John Roberts, tried three times to set the fire, and failed each time. Mr. Roberts was arrested and eventually agreed to betray Mr. Agnello by helping the police.

Government officials said that despite the success of Mr. Agnello's business, he insisted on becoming a made member of the Gambino family in a 1992 ceremony. That ceremony came eight years after he married John Gotti's second daughter.

Mr. Gotti, the former head of the Gambino family, was sometimes heard on government tapes talking of Mr. Agnello with disdain.

"Does he get in the back seat of the car and think someone has stolen the steering wheel?" Mr. Gotti asked his daughter during one jailhouse visit recorded by federal authorities. In another, he described Mr. Agnello as "an imbecile."

Victoria Gotti has reportedly filed for divorce from her husband.