Carmine Agnello, the grandson of notorious mob boss John Gotti, has been sentenced to 15 months in prison for orchestrating a Covid relief funding scam, in which he deceived the US government out of $1.1 million and invested a substantial amount in cryptocurrency, according to the Department of Justice. In a statement released on Monday, the US Attorney's Eastern District of New York office revealed that Agnello had fraudulently obtained multiple disaster relief loans from the Small Business Administration and utilized the funds for personal gain, 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.
US Attorney Joseph Nocella stated, 'During the height of the pandemic, the defendant shamelessly lined his own pockets with government and taxpayers' dollars, which he must repay as part of today's sentence.' Agnello is not the only individual to have defrauded the government's Covid relief fund, with numerous cases resulting in court convictions, 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 funds, was lost to scams.
Agnello's grandfather, John Gotti, was a notorious figure who exerted power through brutal violence and was eventually found guilty on 13 criminal counts, earning him a significant fortune from ventures including extorting unions, illegal gambling, loan-sharking, and stock fraud, before his death in federal prison at the age of 61.