Sisters get 12 months on gambling charges
NWI Times
Sep 28, 1991
nwitimes.com/uncategorized/sisters-get-months-on-gambling-charges/article_4b7e128d-6f61-590f-b730-9ca3eb85951b.html
HAMMOND - Two Merrillville sisters were sentenced Friday to 12 months in prison for their role in a family-controlled sports betting operation.
U.S. District Court Judge James Moody gave Jennifer Kaufman, 37, and Sandra Mynes, 44, the maximum prison terms and ordered them to perform 500 hours of community service.
The two women faced between six and 12 months in prison and between $2,000 and $20,000 in fines. Moody did not fine the women, ruling that they did not have the resources and that he would not anticipate them being able to pay.
Moody gave the maximum prison term and fine - 18 months and $30,000 - to their father, Sam Nuzzo Sr., 70, of Merrillville. Their brother Arthur Nuzzo, 33, also received 18 months and was required to pay $10,000. Both were charged under the same federal gambling law.
The judge showed no mercy on the family, which pleaded guilty July 16 shortly before they were scheduled to go to trial on a charge that they operated an illegal gambling business.
Neither the father, son nor two daughters agreed to cooperate or help the government in its prosecution of 11 other defendants named in a 30-count indictment.
Arthur Nuzzo, Mynes and Kaufman have been held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago since early May, when they were rearrested again and their bonds revoked because they allegedly continued to run their illegal gambling business.
Their older brother, Sam Nuzzo Jr., 45, was arrested with them and was detained as well. He chose to take his case to court, however.
A federal jury last month convicted Nuzzo Jr. and his five other co-defendants, who were accused of not only running an illegal gambling business, but of racketeering, conspiracy and extorting money from other gambling houses.
Martin Kinney, who represented Mynes and Kaufman, told Moody before the sentence was imposed that the two women have had a difficult experience at the correctional center that has helped them comprehend the seriousness of their actions.
Kaufman told Moody she is sorry for what she had done and that she has learned that "nothing and no one is worth your freedom."
"If you give me a change to go home," Kaufman said, "I won't disappoint you."
Mynes declined to speak on her own behalf before she was sentenced.
The government hailed the case as the largest organized crime indictment ever handled by the U.S. attorney's office for Northern District of Indiana.
All of the defendants who went to trial, including Dominick Palermo, 73, the southern territorial boss of the Chicago "Outfit" crime family, were convicted of 56 of the 57 federal charges they faced.
Ned Pujo of Portage pleaded guilty last week of running an illegal gambling business as part of a deal to have the gambling charges against his wife, Yolanda, dropped.
Anthony J. "Potatoes" Ottomanelli of Portage cooperated with the investigation and was given probation.
Another cooperating defendant, Anthony Leone of Valparaiso, will be sentenced Dec. 13. The government's chief witness against the six defendants who went to trial, Leone faced more serious charges than Ottomanelli's single gambling charge.
A remaining defendant, Steve Sfouris of Munster, is still a fugitive and is believed to have fled to his native Greece.
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