At the time of his downfall earlier this year, Junior Williams was grossing $139,479 to $208,697 weekly in numbers bets, court records show. He dodged taxes on more than $4 million in income for the year 2000, according to the Internal Revenue Service.
Adolph "Junior" Williams used to boast he was so connected he could get secret grand jury transcripts leaked to him the very day people testified against his Mafia-connected numbers enterprise.
Now the aging gambling kingpin could spend the rest of his life in a federal prison.
Federal judges have rejected his plea that a severe heart condition should qualify him for leniency. Instead, he must serve four years in prison for his role in a gambling business that generated at least $2.5 million annually.
In taking down Williams, 69, federal authorities say they've finally vanquished the top Mafia numbers operator in the area. Court records depict Williams as a determined businessman who built a gambling empire from humble roots.
Williams' business: running a daily number lottery that began long before the Pennsylvania Lottery. Bet a dollar and hit the three numbers, Williams' cronies handed you $600. That's $100 better than the state lottery -- and no deduction for taxes.
Williams grew up the son of impoverished Italian immigrants in the Hill District, according to court records and testimony taken in connection with 1996 and 2003 federal prosecutions of his activities. His older brother, Salvatore Williams, gave up a football scholarship to help the family of 11 children. A neighbor killed his sister at age 4. From that bleak existence, the Williams brothers built an extensive gambling enterprise.
At the time of his downfall earlier this year, Junior Williams was grossing $139,479 to $208,697 weekly in numbers bets, court records show. He dodged taxes on more than $4 million in income for the year 2000, according to the Internal Revenue Service.
He pleaded guilty to running his illegal numbers racket from 1998 to 2001, and to tax evasion from January 2000 to February 2001.
"He was operating a large-scale gambling business," said U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan. "This was sort of an alternative family business. Certainly, in recent years, he was the largest numbers racket operator in the area."
He'll serve time as the state considers placing a larger bet on the type of business that made him so rich. Pennsylvania not only has a numbers lottery, it's now considering legalizing slot machines to feed a starved budget.
"It seems to me the problem was that Junior's time went by him," said attorney John Doherty, the former chief disciplinary counsel for the system that disciplines corrupt lawyers in Pennsylvania.
Doherty, who grew up in the Hill District with the Williams family, recalls that operating a numbers racket once was an accepted business, albeit illegal. It was the poor man's stock market, he said.
"Consider the fact that many of our parents and/or grandparents would stop to play a number on their way home from daily Mass from either Epiphany or St. Peter's Church," Doherty said in one letter he wrote in 1996 to U.S. District Judge Alan Bloch, urging leniency for Williams' older brother, Salvatore, who was convicted of running the illegal gambling business. "Consider the fact that even the priest had a 'dream book' to check the number as a result of the subject of last night's dream."
Salvatore Williams, a free man these days, declined to comment.
Allegheny County Coroner Cyril Wecht and Sal Sirabella, who would go on to become Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy's deputy mayor, also wrote letters on Salvatore Williams' behalf. Sirabella since has gone on to work for Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll. Sirabella said he urged leniency because his former wife's family knew Salvatore Williams.
Wecht, who grew up about a block from the Williams family in the Hill District, said numbers running was just a part of the way people lived.
"When the state does it with lotteries, it's considered OK," Wecht said. "But when other people do it in an entrepreneurial way, it becomes a big crime. I've never understood the big problem with numbers writing."
Others don't see Williams as so benign.
Consider the devastation his gambling operations caused families, they say.
"People always say, 'It's just gambling,'" said Robert Young, of the Allegheny County Police Department, who for years has busted up numbers operations in the Pittsburgh area and illegal sports wagering operations. "Well, if that's the case, why do I get the calls all the time from the women saying their husband lost all their money on bets. I get the calls from the daughters, the sons, the nieces and nephews."
Young said those who run gambling enterprises often move into other vices.
"I've arrested people for lottery violations," he said. "And a couple of years down the line, our other guys arrest them for narcotics violations."
The now-defunct Pennsylvania Crime Commission reported in 1991 that the numbers enterprise headed by Junior and Salvatore Williams dominated the Hill District, Pittsburgh's East End and the McKees Rocks area.
The report identified the Williamses as associates of the Pittsburgh Mafia family controlled by Michael Genovese, of West Deer. They also were linked with the gambling enterprise headed by another crime family associate, Paul "No Legs" Hankish, who provided protection to the brothers' organization, the report added. Hankish, who controlled Mafia operations in Wheeling, W.Va., died in prison.
The Williamses took over the gambling business of kingpin Anthony "Tony" Grosso, who was imprisoned in 1987, and agreed to pay some of the profit to the Mafia, the report said.
"After Tony passed away, Junior just expanded," Young said. "I would assume he saw there was a vacuum to fill and filled it. He became the King of the Hill."
Young said numbers rackets like those run by Junior Williams will continue to thrive in the Pittsburgh area despite Williams' recent sentencing.
"They pay six to one instead of the five to one the state lottery pays, and you have to pay taxes on what you win from the state," Young said. "They won't ever go away. They make too much money at it."
Electronic surveillance conducted on the Williams enterprise, headquartered at 1420 Fifth Ave., Uptown, in 1991 revealed that Williams was forwarded information on planned police raids.
At one point, a businessman sought $500,000 from Williams to help him through a bad streak. Williams said he would have the money in about a week. The businessman offered to sell property near Three Rivers Stadium for $650,000, and Williams said he would discuss the offer with Salvatore.
The surveillance also captured Williams talking with associates about having an unnamed magistrate fix a parking ticket in McKees Rocks, and how he had politicians and law enforcement officials in his back pocket. He boasted that he "was receiving computer printouts the very day that people were testifying about him before the grand jury."
Williams and five other siblings were prosecuted in federal court eight years ago for running the gambling operation that took over part of the empire once controlled by Grosso.
However, the 1990s conviction, which also involved Salvatore Williams, didn't slow down Junior.
An investigation conducted by the Internal Revenue Service, Pennsylvania State Police Bureau of Investigation and the FBI found that Junior Williams continued his illegal gambling activity despite his 15-month federal prison sentence in the mid-1990s.
U.S. District Judge Alan Bloch in April sentenced Williams to two years in prison for his continuing gambling activity.
"Once on supervised release, or maybe even before then, you immediately continued to engage in the same type of criminal conduct for which this court sentenced you and from which you derived substantial illegal profits," Bloch said. "Thus, you have proven to the court that you have no regard for the law, and now you must pay the price for your continued criminal conduct."
U.S. District Judge Terrence McVerry tacked on two years, which Williams will have to serve consecutively to the two-year sentence Bloch imposed.
Some in law enforcement don't see Williams' recent conviction and sentences as the end of an era.
"He'll keep running it from afar," Young said. "There's no doubt in my mind. I know his operations are still going. They make too much money to give it up."
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/pittsburgh/s_147857.html
Adolph "Junior" Williams used to boast he was so connected he could get secret grand jury transcripts leaked to him the very day people testified against his Mafia-connected numbers enterprise.
Now the aging gambling kingpin could spend the rest of his life in a federal prison.
Federal judges have rejected his plea that a severe heart condition should qualify him for leniency. Instead, he must serve four years in prison for his role in a gambling business that generated at least $2.5 million annually.
In taking down Williams, 69, federal authorities say they've finally vanquished the top Mafia numbers operator in the area. Court records depict Williams as a determined businessman who built a gambling empire from humble roots.
Williams' business: running a daily number lottery that began long before the Pennsylvania Lottery. Bet a dollar and hit the three numbers, Williams' cronies handed you $600. That's $100 better than the state lottery -- and no deduction for taxes.
Williams grew up the son of impoverished Italian immigrants in the Hill District, according to court records and testimony taken in connection with 1996 and 2003 federal prosecutions of his activities. His older brother, Salvatore Williams, gave up a football scholarship to help the family of 11 children. A neighbor killed his sister at age 4. From that bleak existence, the Williams brothers built an extensive gambling enterprise.
At the time of his downfall earlier this year, Junior Williams was grossing $139,479 to $208,697 weekly in numbers bets, court records show. He dodged taxes on more than $4 million in income for the year 2000, according to the Internal Revenue Service.
He pleaded guilty to running his illegal numbers racket from 1998 to 2001, and to tax evasion from January 2000 to February 2001.
"He was operating a large-scale gambling business," said U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan. "This was sort of an alternative family business. Certainly, in recent years, he was the largest numbers racket operator in the area."
He'll serve time as the state considers placing a larger bet on the type of business that made him so rich. Pennsylvania not only has a numbers lottery, it's now considering legalizing slot machines to feed a starved budget.
"It seems to me the problem was that Junior's time went by him," said attorney John Doherty, the former chief disciplinary counsel for the system that disciplines corrupt lawyers in Pennsylvania.
Doherty, who grew up in the Hill District with the Williams family, recalls that operating a numbers racket once was an accepted business, albeit illegal. It was the poor man's stock market, he said.
"Consider the fact that many of our parents and/or grandparents would stop to play a number on their way home from daily Mass from either Epiphany or St. Peter's Church," Doherty said in one letter he wrote in 1996 to U.S. District Judge Alan Bloch, urging leniency for Williams' older brother, Salvatore, who was convicted of running the illegal gambling business. "Consider the fact that even the priest had a 'dream book' to check the number as a result of the subject of last night's dream."
Salvatore Williams, a free man these days, declined to comment.
Allegheny County Coroner Cyril Wecht and Sal Sirabella, who would go on to become Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy's deputy mayor, also wrote letters on Salvatore Williams' behalf. Sirabella since has gone on to work for Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll. Sirabella said he urged leniency because his former wife's family knew Salvatore Williams.
Wecht, who grew up about a block from the Williams family in the Hill District, said numbers running was just a part of the way people lived.
"When the state does it with lotteries, it's considered OK," Wecht said. "But when other people do it in an entrepreneurial way, it becomes a big crime. I've never understood the big problem with numbers writing."
Others don't see Williams as so benign.
Consider the devastation his gambling operations caused families, they say.
"People always say, 'It's just gambling,'" said Robert Young, of the Allegheny County Police Department, who for years has busted up numbers operations in the Pittsburgh area and illegal sports wagering operations. "Well, if that's the case, why do I get the calls all the time from the women saying their husband lost all their money on bets. I get the calls from the daughters, the sons, the nieces and nephews."
Young said those who run gambling enterprises often move into other vices.
"I've arrested people for lottery violations," he said. "And a couple of years down the line, our other guys arrest them for narcotics violations."
The now-defunct Pennsylvania Crime Commission reported in 1991 that the numbers enterprise headed by Junior and Salvatore Williams dominated the Hill District, Pittsburgh's East End and the McKees Rocks area.
The report identified the Williamses as associates of the Pittsburgh Mafia family controlled by Michael Genovese, of West Deer. They also were linked with the gambling enterprise headed by another crime family associate, Paul "No Legs" Hankish, who provided protection to the brothers' organization, the report added. Hankish, who controlled Mafia operations in Wheeling, W.Va., died in prison.
The Williamses took over the gambling business of kingpin Anthony "Tony" Grosso, who was imprisoned in 1987, and agreed to pay some of the profit to the Mafia, the report said.
"After Tony passed away, Junior just expanded," Young said. "I would assume he saw there was a vacuum to fill and filled it. He became the King of the Hill."
Young said numbers rackets like those run by Junior Williams will continue to thrive in the Pittsburgh area despite Williams' recent sentencing.
"They pay six to one instead of the five to one the state lottery pays, and you have to pay taxes on what you win from the state," Young said. "They won't ever go away. They make too much money at it."
Electronic surveillance conducted on the Williams enterprise, headquartered at 1420 Fifth Ave., Uptown, in 1991 revealed that Williams was forwarded information on planned police raids.
At one point, a businessman sought $500,000 from Williams to help him through a bad streak. Williams said he would have the money in about a week. The businessman offered to sell property near Three Rivers Stadium for $650,000, and Williams said he would discuss the offer with Salvatore.
The surveillance also captured Williams talking with associates about having an unnamed magistrate fix a parking ticket in McKees Rocks, and how he had politicians and law enforcement officials in his back pocket. He boasted that he "was receiving computer printouts the very day that people were testifying about him before the grand jury."
Williams and five other siblings were prosecuted in federal court eight years ago for running the gambling operation that took over part of the empire once controlled by Grosso.
However, the 1990s conviction, which also involved Salvatore Williams, didn't slow down Junior.
An investigation conducted by the Internal Revenue Service, Pennsylvania State Police Bureau of Investigation and the FBI found that Junior Williams continued his illegal gambling activity despite his 15-month federal prison sentence in the mid-1990s.
U.S. District Judge Alan Bloch in April sentenced Williams to two years in prison for his continuing gambling activity.
"Once on supervised release, or maybe even before then, you immediately continued to engage in the same type of criminal conduct for which this court sentenced you and from which you derived substantial illegal profits," Bloch said. "Thus, you have proven to the court that you have no regard for the law, and now you must pay the price for your continued criminal conduct."
U.S. District Judge Terrence McVerry tacked on two years, which Williams will have to serve consecutively to the two-year sentence Bloch imposed.
Some in law enforcement don't see Williams' recent conviction and sentences as the end of an era.
"He'll keep running it from afar," Young said. "There's no doubt in my mind. I know his operations are still going. They make too much money to give it up."
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/pittsburgh/s_147857.html
