Carmine Agnello, the grandson of notorious mob boss John Gotti, has been sentenced to 15 months in prison for his role in a $1.1 million Covid-19 relief fund scam, in which he fraudulently obtained disaster relief loans from the Small Business Administration and invested a significant portion of the funds in cryptocurrency. According to the Department of Justice, Agnello submitted false information to the SBA between April 2020 and November 2021, claiming the funds were for his autoparts and recycling business in Queens. Instead, he used approximately $420,000 of the proceeds to invest in a cryptocurrency business. The US Attorney's Eastern District of New York office stated that Agnello 'diverted [the proceeds] for his personal use, including by investing approximately $420,000 in a cryptocurrency business.' Agnello is scheduled to begin his prison sentence on July 1.
The case is part of a larger pattern of fraud against the government's Covid relief funds, with an estimated $135 billion lost to scams. Agnello's grandfather, John Gotti, was a notorious figure who exerted power through brutal violence and was eventually sentenced to federal prison, where he died of cancer at the age of 61.