Meadowbrook resident Joseph Vito Mastronardo Jr., the leader of an alleged sports betting ring, pleaded guilty Friday to racketeering charges, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced.
The 63-year-old Abington man, son-in-law of the late Mayor Frank Rizzo, pleaded guilty to conspiring to participate in a racketeering enterprise, conducting an illegal gambling business, conspiring to launder money, interstate travel in aid of racketeering, transmitting wagering information and aggravated structuring of cash deposits, a USAO release said.
Mastronardo allegedly led the Mastronardo Bookmaking Organization, a nationwide multimillion-dollar sports betting operation involving more than a thousand bettors. Between 2005 and 2011, the websites www.betroma.com and www.betrose.com and telephone numbers, staffed by residents of Costa Rica, were used to take bets on football, baseball, basketball, golf, horse racing and other sporting events, according to the indictment.
Despite an attempt by Montgomery County authorities to shut down the operation in 2006 and 2007, “my office discovered that the defendants … were back in business. These defendants tried to game the system. Today, they crapped out,” county District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said following the arrest of Mastronardo and 14 others in August 2012, according to Times Chronicle archives. At the time, prosecutors acknowledged the operation was non-violent.
In 2006 and 2010, authorities “seized over $2 million cash that Mastronardo had hidden in and around his home, including in specially built secret compartments and in PVC pipes that were buried in his backyard,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
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