Carmine Agnello, grandson of notorious mob boss John Gotti, has received a 15-month prison sentence for his role in defrauding the US government's Covid relief funding system of $1.1 million, which he then used to invest in cryptocurrency, according to the Department of Justice. The US Attorney's Eastern District of New York office stated that Agnello secured multiple disaster relief loans from the Small Business Administration under false pretenses and diverted the funds for personal use, including investing approximately $420,000 in a cryptocurrency business. Between April 2020 and November 2021, Agnello submitted false information to the SBA, claiming the proceeds were for his autoparts and recycling business in Queens, including employee salaries.
'During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the defendant shamefully lined his own pockets with government and taxpayers' dollars, which he must repay as part of today's sentence,' said United States Attorney Joseph Nocella. Agnello's case is not an isolated incident, as numerous individuals have been found guilty of defrauding the government's Covid relief fund, including Bruce Choi, who illegally obtained $2 million in pandemic-related business loans to buy cryptocurrency, and David T.
Hines, who fraudulently obtained $3.9 million and used some of the proceeds to purchase a Lamborghini. According to statistics from the US Government Accountability Office, an estimated $135 billion, or up to 15% of the total Covid relief funds, was lost to scams. Agnello's grandfather, John Gotti, was a powerful mob figure who exerted control through brutal violence and amassed a significant fortune from various illicit ventures, including extortion, gambling, loan-sharking, and stock fraud, before being convicted and sentenced to federal prison, where he died of cancer at the age of 61.