hursday, October 31, 2013
Joe Vito Mastronardo, Gentleman Gambler, Heads To Court
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| Joe Vito |
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For Bigtrial.net
The numbers are staggering.
More than $1.3 million in cash seized at his home in the Meadowbrook section of Huntingdon Valley, including $1.1 million stashed in PVC pipes buried in the back yard.
Another $1.7 million in bank accounts frozen by the feds, part of a seizure action that totals more than $6.3 million.
And a money trail of wire transfers in excess of $3.2 million to financial institutions in Sweden, Malta, Antiqua and Portugal.
That's the financial picture painted by federal prosecutors in the case against "Gentleman Gambler" Joe Vito Mastronardo Jr. and 15 co-defendants, including his wife, his son and his brother.
"At its peak, the Mastronardo Bookmaking Organization had over 1,000 bettors and was generating millions of dollars of betting activity in a year," an indictment now pending in U.S. District Court alleges.
But that's just part of the story.
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| Seized Joe Vito cash |
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Mastronardo is without question one of the premier bookmakers in the Philadelphia area, if not the country. His clientele includes businessmen and corporate executives who think nothing of placing a $10,000 bet on a football or basketball game and whose wins and losses during a season of betting are often measured in six figures. That's serious gambling action and one reason why law enforcement has been buzzing around Mastronardo, 63, for most of his adult life.
The other is this: Joe Vito is the son-in-law of the late Frank L. Rizzo, the former mayor and the former police commissioner of Philadelphia. His wife, Joanna, is Rizzo's only daughter. His son, Joseph F. Mastronardo, 31, is Rizzo's only grandchild.
Their arrests in August 2012 when the indictment was unsealed set tongues wagging. Rizzo, the no-holds-barred, law-and-order mayor and top cop must be rolling in his grave. That was the media message of the day.
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| Joe Vito's Estate |
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The Mastronardos, on the advice of their lawyers, are reluctant to discuss particulars of the case as it moves forward. All are currently free on bail. A hearing on a series of pre-trial motions is set for Nov. 18. The trial itself is scheduled to begin in February.
In a series of off-the-record conversations, however, they have emphasized that the media portrayal of Joe Vito as the "rogue" son-in-law of the legendary mayor and police commissioner is built on speculation and hype rather than reality. Joseph F. Mastronardo said his father and grandfather genuinely liked one another.
He also said the case now pending in federal court is nothing more than a "money grab" by federal authorities, noting that his father and uncle have been down this road before.
In 2006, Joe Vito and his brother John, 58, a former standout wide received for Villanova University, pleaded guilty to gambling charges in Montgomery County in a deal worked out with the District Attorney's Office there. In exchange, the DA agreed not to pursue charges against other members of the family. The brothers also had to give up claims to more than $2 million that had been seized in that case, including $500,000 in cash that authorities found in Joe Vito's car which was stopped while he was returning from a trip to Florida.
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| Joe Vito's father-in-law |
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Montgomery County authorities launched another probe, taping phones (the current case includes over 1,000 secretly recorded conversations) and placing a tracking device in Joe Vito's Cadillac. Investigators also used several informants who were allegedly part of the gambling operation and tracked weekly collections by operatives of the organization.
The Cedar Brook Country Club and the Century House Restaurant on Bethlehem Pike in Hatfield were two favored locations for money exchanges, according to court documents.
