Carmine Agnello, grandson of the notorious John Gotti, has been sentenced to 15 months in prison for his role in defrauding the US government's Covid-19 relief funding system out of $1.1 million, with a significant portion of the proceeds being invested in cryptocurrency, according to the Department of Justice. In a statement, the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York revealed that Agnello had obtained multiple disaster relief loans from the Small Business Administration by submitting false information between April 2020 and November 2021. The funds were allegedly used for personal gain, including investing approximately $420,000 in a cryptocurrency business. Agnello, who is set to begin his prison term on July 1, had claimed the loans were for his autoparts and recycling business in Queens, including employee salaries.
The US Attorney, Joseph Nocella, condemned Agnello's actions, stating that he had 'shamefully lined his own pockets with government and taxpayers' dollars' during the Covid-19 pandemic. The case is one of several instances of fraud related to the government's Covid-19 relief funds, with statistics from the US Government Accountability Office suggesting 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 headed the Gambino crime family, earning an estimated $500 million annually from various illicit activities, before being convicted and sentenced to prison, where he died of cancer in 1992.