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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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Nine in Gambino Crime Family Sentenced

MANHATTAN (CN) - A federal judge put nine members of the Gambino crime family behind bars, and ordered them to forfeit about $136,500.

Onofrio Modica, 47, of Manalapan, N.J., will serve 100 months and forfeit $11,490 for charges of racketeering, jury tampering, extortion, gambling and serving as an accessory to murder.

Thomas Orefice, 34, of Staten Island, was sentenced to 96 months in prison, stemming from charges of racketeering conspiracy, extortion, sex trafficking, loansharking and gambling. He must also forfeit $100,000.

Dominick DiFiore, 31, of Staten Island, will serve 92 months and forfeit $25,000 for extortion conspiracy and narcotics distribution charges.

David Eisler, 24, of Brooklyn, will serve 33 months in prison for racketeering, sex trafficking, extortion and gambling charges.

Salvatore Borgia, 32, of Brooklyn, will serve 21 months for racketeering, narcotics distribution and gambling charges.

Anthony Manzella, 32, of Staten Island, will serve 48 months for racketeering conspiracy, extortion, mail fraud, sex trafficking and gambling.

Michael Scotto, 25, of Staten Island, will serve 37 months for racketeering, extortion and gambling charges.

Michael Scarpaci, 35, of Staten Island, will serve 18 months for racketeering and gambling charges.

Keith Dellitalia, 34, of Staten Island, will serve 21 months for extortion.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan handed down the sentences over the last two days. The other five individuals who were charged last year - Daniel Marino, Thomas Scarpaci, Steve Maiurro, Suzanne Porcelli and Anthony Vecchione - have been sentenced over the past several months.

Marino, 70, of Brooklyn, was the boss of the family, known as La Cosa Nostra. Orefice and Modica were soldiers who supervised crews that included DiFiore, Manzella, Scotto, the Scarpacis, Eisler and Borgia.

Some of the defendants pleaded guilty to the 1997 murder Of Frank Hydell, Marino's nephew who had been cooperating with law enforcement.

"Upon Marino's authorization to kill Hydell, various Gambino Family members and associates lured him to a strip club in Staten Island where he was shot three times in the face and back," prosecutors say. "HYDELL, 31, died in the strip club's parking lot."

In 1987, Modica's motorcycle was used in connection with the drive-by shooting of James DiGuglielmo And Richard Sbarra in Staten Island.

Modica made lied to police and helped to hide and destroy evidence to protect the killers.

He also tried to tamper with the anonymous, sequestered jury hearing the 1992 racketeering and murder trial against then-boss John J. Gotti. "Modica and the others eventually penetrated various security measures, and located the jury at the hotel where it was sequestered," prosecutors say. "The plan to tamper with the jury was called off, however, when Gotti came to believe that the jury would not convict him, even without outside interference."

Orefice, DiFiore, Manzella, Scotto, Eisler, Maiurro and Porcelli exploited young women and girls in a prostitution business that they advertised on Craigslist. "They also made the women available for sex to gamblers at a weekly, high-stakes poker game," prosecutors say.

Orefice, DiFiore, Manzella, Scotto, Eisler, T. Scarpaci and Vecchione extorted various business and individuals, using "serious beatings" to get what they wanted.

Manzella, who operated a meat business, defrauded high-end restaurants in the city with Orefice by inflating invoices for orders by up to 40 percent and paying kickbacks to the restaurant chefs with whom they dealt.

Orefice, DiFiore and Borgia ran a drug-trafficking business that dealt in cocaine, marijuana and oxycodone.

Orefice, Modica, DiFiore, Manzella, the Scarpacis, Eisler, Borgia and Dellitalia ran the family's internet-based sports-betting business, the regular card games and other illegal gambling operations.

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