Five plead guilty to running sports betting operation
Post-Tribune (IN)
July 17, 1991
http://infoweb.newsbank.com.proxy.portagelibrary.info/resources/doc/nb/news/10852CDBB993873F?p=AWNB
Four members of a Merrillville family admitted Tuesday to running a sports betting operation in the town for nearly five years.
"I'm going to plead guilty, sir. I know I done wrong," Sam Nuzzo Sr. told U.S. District Judge James T. Moody.
The slightly built 70-year-old man had sat quietly in the courtroom as three of his children each pleaded guilty to a charge of conducting and aiding and abetting an illegal gambling operation.
The U.S. attorney's office accused Nuzzo Sr., his daughters Sandra T. Mynes, Jennifer J. Kaufman, and son Arthur A. Nuzzo along with Anthony ''Potatoes" Ottomanelli and Ned M. Pujo with running two gambling operations between January 1983 and November 1987.
Ottomanelli also entered a guilty plea. The 61-year-old man is from Portage.
The Nuzzos and Ottomanelli were among 15 alleged gamblers and members of a crime syndicate indicted by a federal grand jury last December on racketeering and illegal gambling charges.
If the pleas are accepted by Moody, each family member and Ottomanelli face a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
According to the terms of the plea agreements, the four Nuzzos won't be required to testify against Sam Nuzzo Jr. or Ned and Yolanda Pujo. Their trial on gambling charges is slated to begin Monday. Ottomanelli, however, will be a government witness in the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Thill told the court one of the gambling operations focused on football parlay or "betting" cards, while the other accepted bets on individual sporting events.
Thill said that Pujo, who has pleaded not guilty, ran a card operation out of the Beer Barrel Tavern in Merrillville, and the Nuzzo family operated the other. Ottomanelli admitted assisting the Nuzzos.
According to the government, Ottomanelli, under instructions from Arthur or Sam Sr., contacted a printer in LaPorte on Tuesdays and gave the printer the point spreads of upcoming games. Ottomanelli would later pick up the cards and deliver them to either Arthur or Sam Sr.
The college and professional football games scheduled for the following weekend would be printed on the cards along with an assigned point spread. To win, a bettor had to pick a particular number of games and win all of them.
Thill said Arthur, Sam Sr. and Ottomanelli would pass the cards along to ''distributors" who would in turn pass them out to friends and co-workers who wanted to place bets.
Thill added that some of the more than 20 distributors would turn in as much as $2,000 a week in wagers. Distributors were paid 25 percent of the total money they collected, Thill said.
Along with parlay operation, the Nuzzos also admitted that they accepted individual bets on sporting events.
The primary focus of the operation was professional football and basketball, college football and basketball, as well as horse racing.
Sandra Mynes and Jennifer Kaufman answered two telephone lines that bettors were given by Arthur, Sam Jr. or Sam Nuzzo Sr.
The sisters would tell bettors whether they owed money from previous bets, or had won cash. They would then give bettors the point spreads for the games bettors were interested in betting on.
If a bettor lost, he would pay the Nuzzos the amount wagered along with an additional 10 percent, known as "juice."
Both Mynes and Kaufman admitted their roles in the telephone operation. Arthur Nuzzo told the court he distributed the parlay cards.
Sam Nuzzo Sr. said profits from the operations were divided between himself and his children.
Nuzzo Sr. and Ottomanelli were allowed to remain free on bond. The Nuzzo children were returned to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago where they have been detained since May when U.S. Magistrate Andrew P. Rodovich revoked their bonds.
Rodovich revoked their bonds after the government presented evidence they continued accepting bets even after the December indictment.
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