[clevfan]

Thu, Jun. 01, 2006



Mastronardo duo face bet counts
By WILL BUNCH

phillynews.com

He once was a political albatross around the neck of his famous father-in-law, the late Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo.

But this time, the only thing at risk with the arrest of alleged big-time, high-tech bookie Joseph Mastronardo, now 56, is his future freedom, and his reputation.

Mastronardo and his brother, John, 50 - a former Eagles draft choice - were charged with bookmaking yesterday after authorities in suburban Montgomery County seized $2.7 million in cash, mostly from Joseph's home and from his Cadillac.

But the new charges also threaten the reputation of Mastronardo - who has a long history of gambling-related arrests - as someone who was above the normally rough-and-tumble world of bookmaking.

Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. said at a news conference that an investigation began after police in Souderton said they noticed an increase in violence that was apparently the result of unpaid gambling debts. Castor stressed that the alleged ring is not tied to organized crime.

Yesterday's charges might seem a blast from the past for Philadelphia political junkies. Mastronardo is married to the late mayor's daughter, Joanna, and his arrest in 1983 - at the height of a closely fought mayoral race between Rizzo and eventual winner, W. Wilson Goode - sent shock waves through that year's campaign.

Then, Rizzo accused the Police Department - where he famously had been commissioner - of "acting like a bunch of KGB agents" by picking the hour of a televised mayoral debate to raid a $30-million-a-year betting ring operated by his son-in-law.

In fact, detectives showed up at a debate-viewing fund-raiser, sponsored by the Rizzo campaign, in search of Mastronardo that night. Rizzo fumed that "there's nothing that important about bookmaking" and that the sole intent of the raid was to embarrass him politically.

Joseph Mastronardo was convicted in 1987 on federal gambling charges. According to a 1990 report by the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, he once ran a gambling operation that grossed $50 million a year.

Apparently, authorities don't agree with the contention of Rizzo, who died in 1991, that bookmaking isn't that important. In recent weeks, investigators had wiretapped Mastronardo's phones before seizing the cash last month.

Officials said Mastronardo ran an Internet gambling site called betroma.com. The 1990 crime report had noted at that time that he used computerized statements and that, at least then, "strong-arm tactics or violence were not used to collect debts."

The Mastronardo brothers were arraigned before Magisterial District Judge Walter Gadzicki and bail was set at $100,000. Both waived their rights to a preliminary hearing. Castor said yesterday that the brothers are expected to plead guilty.

Each faces a maximum possible sentence of 10 years in prison.


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