Gotti grandson sentenced for using Queens company to commit COVID-19 relief fraud
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Carmine Gotti Angello, first from left, was convicted of using his Queens auto parts company to defraud a federal COVID-19 loan program. AP file photo by Evan Agostini
By Jacob Kaye
The grandson of infamous mob boss John Gotti was sentenced to a little more than a year in federal prison on Monday for using his Queens auto parts company to bilk a COVID-19 loan program out of more than $1 million.
Carmine Gotti Angello, the grandson of former Gambino crime family head John Gotti, was hit with a 15 month prison sentence and ordered to make a $1.2 million restitution payment after he pleaded guilty in September 2024 to defrauding the U.S. Small Business Administration's COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan program. Angello will also be required to serve two years of supervised release and perform 100 hours of community service as part of his sentence.
During the height of the pandemic between April 2020 and November 2021, Angello applied for at least three COVID relief loans totaling around $1.1 million in aid.
In the applications, he said Crown Auto Parts & Recycling, LLC, his Jamaica-based company, was in need of help during the pandemic.
But prosecutors said he lied about the number of employees who worked for Crown in order to get the loans approved. He also lied about how he would use the money, according to court filings.
While the program was meant to provide low-interest financing to small businesses during the pandemic, Angello instead used the money for personal use, including by investing around $420,000 in a cryptocurrency business.
He pleaded guilty to a single count of wire fraud in 2024.
“During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the defendant shamefully lined his own pockets with government and taxpayers’ dollars which he must repay as part of today’s sentence,” United States Attorney Joseph Nocella said in a statement.
“Our office will continue to investigate and bring to justice those criminals who stole funds that were intended to assist legitimate businesses and their employees during a time of crisis,” he added.
Angello, whose family was the subject of reality TV show “Growing Up Gotti,” will be far from the first member of his family to serve time in prison.
Angello’s grandfather was the longtime mob boss of one of New York’s five families. Though once given the nickname “The Teflon Don” for his ability to seemingly escape prosecution, Gotti was convicted of murder, racketeering, obstruction of justice and a slew of other charges for which he was sentenced to life in prison. He died in a federal prison in 2002.
Gotti’s son-in-law and Angello’s father, Carmine "The Bull" Agnello, was convicted of racketeering after he firebombed a rival scrap company in Willets Point that was owned and operated by undercover NYPD officers.
