Martin Angelina, Racketeering Conspiracy, Pennsylvania 2012

Philadelphia mobster Martin Angelina, 50, pleaded guilty to participating in a racketeering conspiracy involving loan sharking and illegal gambling.

According to a guilty plea hearing before U.S. District Judge Eduardo C. Robreno, Angelina admitted to attempting to collect payments related to usurious loans by using extortionate means and operating an illegal video poker machine business in furtherance of the racketeering conspiracy.

Angelina was among 14 members and associates of the Philadelphia La Cosa Nostra (LCN) Family charged with crimes involving racketeering conspiracy, extortion, loan sharking, illegal gambling, witness tampering and theft from an employee benefit plan in a third superseding indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Philadelphia on July 25, 2012.

The indictment included Philadelphia LCN Family boss Joseph Ligambi, Philadelphia LCN Family underboss Joseph Massimino, George Borgesi, Gaeton Lucibello, Anthony Staino Jr., Damion Canalichio, Louis Barretta, Gary Battaglini, Robert Verrecchia, Eric Esposito, Robert Ranieri, Joseph Licata and Louis Fazzini.

Angelina’s sentencing is scheduled for December 3, 2012.

The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney John S. Han of the Criminal Division’s Organized Crime and Gang Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Frank A. Labor III and Suzanne B. Ercole of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

The case is being investigated by the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division, the Pennsylvania State Police, the New Jersey State Police, the Philadelphia Police Department, and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General Office of Labor Racketeering and Fraud Investigations, and Employee Benefits Security Administration.

Related Federal Cases