Veteran organized crime reporter George Anastasia is covering the federal trial of former Philadelphia Mayor and Police Commissioner Frank Rizzo's son-in-law, bookmaker Joe Vito Mastronardo, for Bigtrial.net.
The numbers are staggering.
More than $1.3 million in cash seized at his home in the Meadowbrook section of Huntingdon Valley, including $1.1 million stashed in PVC pipes buried in the back yard.
Another $1.7 million in bank accounts frozen by the feds, part of a seizure action that totals more than $6.3 million.
And a money trail of wire transfers in excess of $3.2 million to financial institutions in Sweden, Malta, Antiqua and Portugal.
That's the financial picture painted by federal prosecutors in the case against "Gentleman Gambler" Joe Vito Mastronardo Jr. and 15 co-defendants, including his wife, his son and his brother.
"At its peak, the Mastronardo Bookmaking Organization had over 1,000 bettors and was generating millions of dollars of betting activity in a year," an indictment now pending in U.S. District Court alleges.
But that's just part of the story.
... Law enforcement has been gunning for Joe Vito for years, in part because of what he has done, but as important because of who he is.
Mastronardo is without question one of the premier bookmakers in the Philadelphia area, if not the country. His clientele includes businessmen and corporate executives who think nothing of placing a $10,000 bet on a football or basketball game and whose wins and losses during a season of betting are often measured in six figures. That's serious gambling action and one reason why law enforcement has been buzzing around Mastronardo, 63, for most of his adult life.
The other is this: Joe Vito is the son-in-law of the late Frank L. Rizzo, the former mayor and the former police commissioner of Philadelphia. His wife, Joanna, is Rizzo's only daughter. His son, Joseph F. Mastronardo, 31, is Rizzo's only grandchild.
Their arrests in August 2012 when the indictment was unsealed set tongues wagging. Rizzo, the no-holds-barred, law-and-order mayor and top cop must be rolling in his grave. That was the media message of the day.
You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:
http://www.bigtrial.net/2013/10/joe-vito-mastronardo-gentleman-gambler.html#more
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