Carmine Agnello, the grandson of the notorious mob boss John Gotti, has received a 15-month prison sentence for his role in defrauding the US government's Covid-19 relief funding system of $1.1 million, with the proceeds partly used to invest in cryptocurrency, according to the Department of Justice. In a statement released on Monday, the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York revealed that Agnello had fraudulently obtained multiple disaster relief loans from the Small Business Administration and utilized the funds for personal use, including investing approximately $420,000 in a cryptocurrency business.
The defendant submitted false information to the SBA between April 2020 and November 2021, 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 several 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 purchase cryptocurrency, and David T.
Hines, who fraudulently obtained $3.9 million and used some of the proceeds to buy 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 powerful figure who exerted control through brutal violence and was eventually found guilty on 13 criminal counts, dying in federal prison at the age of 61.