Carmine Agnello, grandson of the notorious mob boss John Gotti, has received a 15-month prison sentence for his role in a $1.1 million Covid relief fund scam, with the proceeds partly used to invest in cryptocurrency, according to the Department of Justice. In a statement, the US Attorney's Eastern District of New York office revealed that Agnello had fraudulently obtained multiple disaster relief loans from the government's Small Business Administration and diverted the funds for personal use, including investing approximately $420,000 in a cryptocurrency business. The fraud occurred between April 2020 and November 2021, with Agnello submitting false information to the SBA, claiming the funds were for his autoparts and recycling business in Queens.
'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 notorious figure who exerted power through brutal violence and amassed a significant fortune through various illicit ventures, including extortion, illegal gambling, and stock fraud, before being sentenced to federal prison, where he died of cancer at the age of 61.