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Paul Mancuso, 50, previously admitted conspiring with co-defendant Pasquale “Pat” Stiso to pretend to broker deals on a pizzeria in the Bahamas, a casino in Atlantic City and a chunk of real estate in Matawan that they flipped, among other bogus ventures that authorities said drained victims’ life savings.
Both were up to their necks in hock with bookies — including a $500,000 debt that Macuso still hadn’t paid, the government said.
Instead of funding the purported projects, Mancuso told a federal judge in Newark last fall, he and Stiso, a 55-year-old disbarred attorney from Harrison in Westchester County, used the money for personal expenses and gambling.
Months before his plea, Mancuso was behind the wheel of a 2015 Mercedes Benz that crossed a double-yellow line and slammed into another vehicle in Central Jersey, critically injuring a 58-year-old grandmother. The status of that case was being resolved.
Mancuso reputedly had ties to Genovese captain Joseph “The Eagle” Gatto of Paterson, who died in April 2010. Authorities said Mancuso participated in a gambling ring headed by Gatto that took $300,000 a week in illegal wagers from tens of thousands of customers nationwide.
Gatto’s father and brother, legendary North Jersey Genovese gangster Louis “Streaky” Gatto and Louis Gatto Jr., both died while serving federal prison sentences.
Stiso was tried over seven weeks before Martini, who convicted him of all 10 counts of a superseding indictment charging him with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, six substantive counts of wire fraud, and three counts of money laundering. The judge sentenced him in June to 43 months in prison.
U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman credited special agents of the FBI, the IRS, and investigators in his office with making the case, presented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Francisco J. Navarro and Anthony Mahajan of his Criminal Division in Newark.
In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Judge William J. Martini sentenced Mancuso to three years of supervised release and ordered him to pay $3,266,250 of restitution.
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