Joseph Yerardi, Extortion and Gambling, Massachusetts 2023

Defendant’s Record of Crime Spree

BOSTON – A Newton man, Joseph Yerardi, has been sentenced to seven years in prison for his involvement in an extortion and gambling racket.

Yerardi, 62, of Newton, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Denise J. Casper to seven years in prison and three years of supervised release. Judge Casper also issued an order forfeiting over $68,000 in cash recovered in searches or from bank accounts in Yerardi’s name, as well as 30 fake luxury watches also recovered in searches, and a forfeiture money judgment order against Yerardi for $300,000.

In December 2016, Yerardi pleaded guilty to conducting an illegal gambling business, conspiring to make and making extortionate extensions of credit, and conspiring to collect and collecting extensions of credit by extortionate means.

Yerardi was the head of a large bookmaking business that made hundreds of thousands of dollars and used threats or other extortionate means to collect debts. Among other things, a debtor reported that Yerardi threatened to stab the debtor “twenty times” for not paying a gambling debt.

This is not the first time Yerardi has faced charges for his involvement in organized crime. In 2009, Yerardi was convicted in federal court in Boston of racketeering, conducting an illegal gambling business, money laundering, and collection of credit by extortionate means, and sentenced to 100 months in prison. In 1995, Yerardi was convicted in federal court in Boston of racketeering, extortionate extensions of credit, collection of credit by extortionate means, money laundering, conducting an illegal gambling business and witness intimidation, and sentenced to 135 months in prison.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Division, and the Massachusetts State Police, with assistance from the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigations in Boston, the Massachusetts Department of Correction, and the Boston, Cambridge, Medford, and Quincy Police Departments.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy E. Moran of the Organized Crime and Gang Unit prosecuted the case. Acting United States Attorney William D. Weinreb; Harold H. Shaw, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Division; and Colonel Richard D. McKeon, Superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police, made the announcement today.

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