{"id":53557,"date":"2025-07-10T07:44:18","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T07:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/53557\/"},"modified":"2025-07-10T07:44:18","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T07:44:18","slug":"lucchese-captain-anthony-villani-sentenced-for-illegal-gambling-racket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/53557\/","title":{"rendered":"Lucchese captain Anthony Villani sentenced for illegal gambling racket"},"content":{"rendered":"

That\u2019s a La Cosa No-No-stra.<\/p>\n

A Mafia captain was sentenced Wednesday for running an illegal online betting operation that netted nearly $25 million over the past 25 years, according to federal prosecutors. <\/p>\n

US District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto gave Anthony Villani, a reputed Lucchese crime family soldier, 21 months in the slammer for his involvement in the racket, officials said. <\/p>\n

Villani, a 60-year-old resident of Elmsford, pleaded guilty earlier in the year to racketeering, money laundering and illegal gambling. <\/p>\n

\"SealUnited States District Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto sentenced Anthony Villani, a captain in the Lucchese organized crime family, to 21 months in prison following his conviction for racketeering with predicate acts of money laundering and illegal gambling, officials said Paul Martinka<\/p>\n

The captain owned Rhino Sports, an online business employing Mafia figures as local bookmakers. <\/p>\n

The operation, which was based in the Bronx and Westchester county, took in at least $1 million annually from thousands of gamblers, federal prosecutors said. <\/p>\n

Villani recruited and employed \u201ctrusted associates\u201d to help him manage the illegal gambling outfit, officials said.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

He also extorted someone between October 2019 and October 2020, threatening them over $300,000 they stole from Rhino Sports, according to prosecutors. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to repeat myself.\u00a0 I\u2019m not going to ever say this again.\u00a0 We\u2019re just going to have a problem if I find out.\u00a0 Alright?\u00a0 And I don\u2019t want to threaten you with my friends or anything, I\u2019m not gonna, you put me in a f\u2014\u2013g hole with this guy,\u201d Villani reportedly warned on April 27, 2020. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AAnthony Villani employed co-defendants James Coumoutsos and Michael Praino \u2014 who went by the nicknames \u201cQuick\u201d and \u201cPlatinum\u201d \u2014 as bookmakers, federal prosecutors said. Paul Martinka<\/p>\n

\u201cListen, get the f\u2014\u2013g money.\u00a0 I\u2019m telling you right now, you don\u2019t get this money \u2013 f\u2014\u2013g run away,\u201d\u00a0 he said, according to prosecutors. \u201cGo get this f\u2014\u2013g money,\u201d Villani demanded months later, prosecutors said. <\/p>\n

The man on the receiving end of the threats believed Villani or other members of the Lucchese crime family would physically hurt or kill him if he did not repay the debt.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The case was investigated by the Eastern District of New York\u2019s Organized Crime and Gangs Section.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That\u2019s a La Cosa No-No-stra. A Mafia captain was sentenced Wednesday for running an illegal online betting operation…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":53558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,1121,39799,31905,16759,39800,39801,39802,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,39803,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-53557","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-brooklyn","10":"tag-brooklyn-federal-court","11":"tag-death-threats","12":"tag-gambling","13":"tag-judges","14":"tag-lucchese-family","15":"tag-mafia","16":"tag-metro","17":"tag-new-york","18":"tag-new-york-city","19":"tag-newyork","20":"tag-newyorkcity","21":"tag-ny","22":"tag-nyc","23":"tag-threats","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-united-states-of-america","26":"tag-unitedstates","27":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","28":"tag-us","29":"tag-us-news","30":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114827825294733526","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}