Carmine Agnello, grandson of the notorious John Gotti, has been sentenced to 15 months in prison for perpetrating a $1.1 million Covid-19 relief fund scam, with proceeds used to invest in cryptocurrency, according to the Department of Justice. The US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York released a statement on Monday, detailing how Agnello fraudulently obtained multiple disaster relief loans from the Small Business Administration and diverted the funds for personal use, including a $420,000 investment 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. Agnello will begin his prison sentence on July 1 and has been ordered to repay the funds as part of his sentence.
US Attorney Joseph Nocella stated that Agnello 'shamefully lined his own pockets with government and taxpayers' dollars' during the Covid-19 pandemic. The case is one of several instances of Covid-19 relief fund fraud, with statistics from the US Government Accountability Office indicating that up to 15% of the total funds, approximately $135 billion, were lost to scams.
Agnello's grandfather, John Gotti, was a notorious figure who wielded power through violence and was eventually found guilty on 13 criminal counts in 1992, dying in federal prison at the age of 61.