A retired New York City police sergeant has been convicted for acting as a dealer at illegal poker games on Staten Island.
On Thursday, 55-year-old Ralph Mastrantonio (pictured left) was convicted in a Brooklyn federal courthouse on charges of illegal gambling and conspiracy for his work at a poker den dubbed Fifth Street. The floating operation was professionally run, with printed game schedules and branded ‘Fifth Street’ poker chips.
Police sent an undercover detective equipped with a hidden video camera to document the goings-on, then shut down the operation in June 2011. Police arrested 15 individuals, most of whom eventually reached plea deals with federal prosecutors that resulted in probationary sentences.
The Queen’s District Attorney caught wind of the game after getting a tip that Richard Palase, a New York City police detective, was associating with organized crime figures at the games. Palase pled guilty to illegal gambling on Feb. 11 and is awaiting sentencing.
Besides, Mastrantonio, only game financier (and funeral director) Joseph ‘The Undertaker’ Furnando opted to fight the charges. Furnando was found guilty last September and will learn his punishment on May 11.
Law360 reported that Mastrantonio’s attorney claimed his client had only been dealing cards as a favor to a friend, a retired New York City firefighter, who was otherwise indisposed the night the undercover cop filmed Mastrantonio dealing cards. Prosecutors rejected this argument, saying there was plenty of evidence indicating that Mastrantonio was a regular dealer at Fifth Street.
Defense lawyer Daniel Bibb made light of the organized crime allegations, saying the closest prosecutors got to a mobster was “Sammy Gravano’s niece-in-law,” referring to the former Gambino family underboss. Prosecutors threw around names of other poker participants, including “Porky Joe” and “Joe the Beef,” leading Judge Sterling Johnson to muse that he didn’t understand “the relevance of these meat names.”
It took the jury only a few hours to return their guilty verdict. Mastrantonio faces a maximum sentence of up to five years on each count, but will likely receive significantly less time given his relatively minor role in the operation.
The case was notable for the fact that it came following a different New York court’s ruling that illegal poker operators couldn’t fall back on the ‘skill game’ argument to wiggle out of their legal jams. That ruling, involving Lawrence DiCristina, meant any poker operation that lasted longer than a month, earned more than $2k in rake on any one day and required the attention of five or more individuals was in violation of the 1970 Illegal Gambling Business Act.
